Nick Gibb: The Secretary of State will recall Tony Blair's vision for the academies programme. He said:
	"Our aim is the creation of a system of independent non-fee paying state schools."
	We were told that academies were to be freed from the national curriculum and independent of local authority control, but since the Secretary of State took office he has required all new academies to follow the national curriculum and now a third of new academies have local authorities as their sponsor. Why have the Government abandoned those freedoms? Is it not the case that, as last week's legislative programme makes clear, the Government have run out of ideas on school reform, have no clear sense of direction and, as the chief inspector of schools said today, school "standards have stalled"?

Beverley Hughes: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's question. I know the premium that he places on communication and language skills, as do I. I will investigate the question that he raises about guidance for the Department of Health and write to him. I can tell him, however, that speech and language therapists are increasingly working in and through children's centres, which I am very pleased about. We will also develop a programme, which I think we will call Let's Talk, to help people to develop children's vocabulary, because we know that that makes a big difference to a child's ability to communicate.
	On outreach, we have also funded two additional workers in every children's centre, to ensure that we reach those families who would perhaps not necessarily find it that easy to come of their own volition. Going out to those families can encourage them to come into the children's centres.

Edward Balls: I am happy to join my hon. Friend in praising Sandwell council, which last year had the seventh biggest improvement in school results in the whole country, and the 20th biggest increase over the past 10 years. I am happy to praise local authorities—Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat—that make progress on standards. I refuse to run down the contribution of local authorities in the way that Conservative Members do at every opportunity. It is quite right, however, to continue to work with Sandwell so that results continue to improve in the future. I also support the council in its work in opening academies. We are allocating £23 million to the black country challenge over the next three years, but the money will be well spent only if it is spent in partnership with local authorities rather than in opposition and conflict.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Minister accept that in Crawley, in Staffordshire and everywhere else the best possible centre is the family? What is she doing as a Minister of a Department that carries that word in its title, to encourage families and not to institutionalise children, irrespective of their backgrounds?

Jim Knight: Well, in among that long list of things that we are doing, my hon. Friend should pick out Every Child a Reader, Every Child a Writer and Every Child Counts, which aim to ensure that every child leaves primary school with the required standard. We have 100,000 more than in 1997 achieving the required standard in English and maths, but we need to go further. The effect of a positive environment is not to be underestimated, and the Building Schools for the Future programme will proceed without the £5.2 billion-worth of black hole in its finances that the Conservative party has in its BSF programme.

Jim Knight: Of course, there was not enough time to list all the many things that we are doing to raise standards in schools. Improving teaching is certainly one of them. Ofsted, which the Conservative party is keen to quote, tells us that we have the best generation of young teachers that we have ever had in our schools. One thing that we are doing further to develop the early years of teaching is developing a masters qualification in teaching and learning, so that teaching can become a masters-level profession. Part of that will involve ensuring that we have proper rigour.
	Recently, I was at a school in Calderdale, seeing the progression pilots. I saw really good rigour in key stage 3 English and maths teaching; teachers using progression pilot techniques such as the APP—assessing pupil progress—method were able properly to identify the level that each child was at in their class and help them to progress on to the next one.

Kevin Brennan: I can confirm that. I can also confirm that, in addition to the meetings that I mentioned in my answer, at the Department of Health later this afternoon I shall meet the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), along with front-line practitioners and members of the expert group, to discuss the review even further.
	As the hon. Lady says, schools have a vital role to play. Only last week I visited St Matthew's school, Westminster, and in previous weeks I visited Mowlem primary school in Tower Hamlets, where we looked at the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme. I hope that Conservative Front Benchers have changed their minds about that programme, because it is having a real effect in transforming some of those problems in our schools.

Kevin Brennan: Yes. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend, who was an early innovator of those initiatives, and piloted and introduced many of them to Government. Early intervention and building the resilience of children and young people are vital in today's complicated world, and I assure her they are at the heart of the Children's Plan and the Department's mission.

Brian Binley: As a result of that analysis the Department issued a badly drafted press release that inferred that schools in Northamptonshire were, among other things, taking money for offering places. It later transpired that not one school in Northamptonshire acted in such a way. Will the Minister now apologise to my constituents, and to the wider Northamptonshire public, for that truly disturbing press release?

Edward Balls: The chief inspector of schools has made a statement today, and I fully support it. It is right that the views of parents are fully incorporated into the inspections regime. Our national challenge programme to improve every school will require local authorities to take into account the views of local parents and to consult them actively. The details of how the inspection regime will work is a matter for Ofsted, not for me. I am sure that the chief inspector will want to ensure that we avoid vexatious views and the putting up of obstacles. I think that it is right that we make it easier for parents to have a view and to, if not to trigger, at least raise the potential for an early inspection of a particular school. I fully support what the chief inspector is doing to enhance parent power in our country.

Anne Snelgrove: The excellent reading recovery scheme at Oaktree primary school in Swindon is achieving remarkable results with young people, particularly Kerry, Charlene and Dylan, whom I heard read the other day; they were excellent readers. Would my right hon. Friend congratulate Celia Messenger, the tutor in charge of reading recovery? Will he consider visiting the scheme? Is the success of Swindon's scheme replicated throughout the country?

Edward Balls: The hon. Gentleman is well known for his cricketing skills and interest, and for his work on the all-party group. It was a matter of pleasure for me to see him bowled out in the first over of our game last year, even though those from my side of the House went on to suffer defeat. According to my information, nine out of 10 schools do offer cricket to their pupils, and more than half of all schools have strong links with cricket clubs. We support enthusiastically the work of the "Chance to Shine" initiative and the national cricket day tomorrow, and I am happy to meet him to discuss the matter further. For the benefit of Members on both sides of the House, the current score is that New Zealand are 187 for four.

Celia Barlow: Will the Minister join me in congratulating Hangleton Park children's centre, which opens on Thursday—the latest of 14 across my city of Brighton and Hove? I have had the joy of visiting the openings of Clarendon road, Cornerstones, West Hove school, Mile Oak and South Portslade children's centres. Does she agree that those centres not only provide a wonderful start in life for babies and toddlers, but are a cohesive force in the community, making adults realise the importance of parenthood?

Points of Order

Alan Haselhurst: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
	No. 2, page 4, line 6, leave out from 'authorise' to end of line 12 and insert—
	'(a) the mixing of human gametes with animal gametes,
	(b) the bringing about of the creation of a human admixed embryo, or
	(c) the keeping or using of a human admixed embryo.'.
	No. 42, line 13, leave out subsection (4).
	Government amendment No. 33
	No. 10, line 14, at end insert—
	'(4A) A licence cannot authorise the creation of an embryo using—
	(a) human gametes and animal gametes, or
	(b) one human pronucleus and one animal pronucleus.'.
	No. 11, line 22, leave out paragraph (b).
	No. 44, page 4, leave out lines 25 to 27.
	Government amendments Nos. 34 and 35.
	No. 3, in schedule 2, page 54, line 31, at end insert—
	'(ca) omit paragraph (f)'.
	Government amendment No. 36
	No. 43, page 58, line 2, at end insert—
	'(4A) A licence for research cannot authorise the creation of an embryo by the introduction of a sequence of nuclear or mitochondrial DNA from any species into one or more cells of the embryo or into gametes used to create that embryo.'.
	Government amendments Nos. 37 to 39.

The Chairman: Order. I had not meant to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but Deputy Leader is a new term.

Edward Leigh: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall start again.
	Amendment No. 1 addresses probably the most radical proposal in the Bill, which is to create part-animal, part-human embryos. The main contention of the amendment's supporters is that that is ethically wrong and almost certainly medically useless—or, if it is not useless, that there is no evidence as yet to substantiate it.
	It is said by those who resist the amendment that we can rely on regulation, but we do not believe that regulation is enough. We believe that the move is a step too far and should therefore be banned. Indeed, the Government support the contention that some things are so ethically dangerous that they should be banned. For instance, the Bill will not allow the use of embryos for sex selection or to allow deaf people to have deaf children. Occasionally, the House makes a firm decision that something is ethically wrong. The House long ago decided, for example, that it did not want better to regulate capital punishment; it simply stopped capital punishment. The amendment is a call for these experiments to be banned.
	It is said, too, that the embryos will be allowed to live for only 14 days. We do not believe that that answers the point that we are now crossing an entirely new ethical boundary. Many claims have been made for this research. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State cited Lord Winston as a supporter of the Bill. Indeed, Lord Winston is a supporter of the Bill, but he is also a lukewarm supporter of such research. He said:
	"If the hybrid embryo thing doesn't go through, it in no way shakes the body of science. It's not about embryos that can survive, or viable monsters. Nothing like that. It's a nice adjunct; a useful extra. But if we don't have that resource, it won't fundamentally alter the science of stem cell biology."
	Let us compare that lukewarm support from Lord Winston, who is admittedly a supporter of the Bill, with what the Secretary of State said:
	"That development is recognised by scientists across the world as an essential"—
	I emphasise the use of the word "essential"—
	"building block for establishing cures for many life-threatening diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's."—[ Official Report, 12 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 1068.]
	Indeed, no one in the House denies that those are appalling diseases. How wonderful it would be if we had some realistic way of curing them, but there is no overwhelming or large-scale body of scientific evidence that suggests that such research, which crosses the ultimate boundary between animals and humans, will cure anything. That is our point.
	My point of view is backed up by a letter written by scientists from "across the world", to quote the Secretary of State. It was written by Professor Scolding of Bristol, Professor Chopp of Detroit, Professor Franz of Munich, Professor Mackay-Sim of Queensland and Professor Martin of Melbourne and was published in  The Times only this Friday. What did it say?
	"In particular, given the current state of more conventional embryonic stem-cell research, of adult stem-cell research and induced pluripotent stem-cell research, there is no demonstrable scientific or medical case for insisting on creating, without any clear scientific precedent, a wide spectrum of human-non-human hybrid entities or 'human admixed embryos'...As scientists and clinicians actively involved in stem-cell research and regenerative medicine, we do not hold a single common view about the relative merits, ethics and potential of adult v (conventional embryonic stem cells. But we all believe that extravagant claims regarding the purported merits of human-non-human interspecies embryos are mistaken and misleading, and that such research would damage public confidence and support, to the detriment both of the cause of stem-cell science and, ultimately, of patients."
	I very much hope that all right hon. and hon. Members have a chance to go to the Library to read that important letter.
	The public have been misled—cruelly, in many cases—into thinking that such research could lead to early and useful cures by exaggeration, misinformation and hyperbole.

Edward Leigh: Make no mistake—what we are doing this afternoon is unique. No other country has gone down this avenue yet. When there is obviously no scientific consensus, no public consensus and no overwhelming proof that any good will come of it, do we really want to take that step?

Edward Leigh: I want to make some progress; if there is time, I will give way later.
	A vote for animal-human research is not a vote for hope; it is a vote for false hope, and we should not take that risk. It is not good enough to say that such research will be tightly regulated. In many ways, our age is one of technology giants and ethical infants—we are like children playing with land mines, because we have no idea of the dangers posed by the technology that we are handling.
	It has been stated that there is no prospect, and that there never will be, of creating humanzees, although that was attempted by Soviet scientists in the 1920s—sadly, they got nowhere. However, what Professor Hugh McLachlan of Glasgow Caledonian university has said is interesting:
	"Any species came to be what it is now because of all sorts of interaction in the past. If it turns out in the future there was fertilisation between a human animal and a non-human animal, it's an idea that is troublesome, but in terms of what particular ethical principle is breached it's not clear to me. I share their squeamishness and unease, but I'm not sure that unease can be expressed in terms of an ethical principle."
	That was written by a professor in a British university. There is a prospect, although I know that it is only tiny.
	Do we want to put all our faith in regulation? Can we not recognise a principle when we see it? We do not have to be Christians to believe that we are all created in God's image. We can surely accept that embryos contain the genetic make-up of a complete human being and that we cannot and should not be spliced together with the animal kingdom.
	The process that we are discussing will perpetuate the destruction of human embryos: 2.2 million have already been destroyed. I know that on Second Reading some cast doubt on opinion polls, but a recent Opinion Research poll said that 67 per cent. oppose the measure and in 2007, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's own poll said that 62 per cent. of people were opposed. Whatever the arguments about public opinion, I repeat that there is no public consensus.
	A lot of attacks have been made on Cardinal O'Brien—"How can this man talk about Frankensteins? We are not talking about monsters." However, a monster does not have to be big and ugly; it could be a monstrous creation. If an embryo could talk, perhaps they would echo what Mary Shelley wrote in "Frankenstein":
	"I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on."
	I believe that science is doing wonderful things, but it can also do terrible things. Science should be our servant, not our master. Science should not tell us what to do on all occasions; it can tell us what can be done, but should not necessarily tell us what to do. In history, science and even medical research has been corrupted and futile research should not be allowed.
	May I leave the last word to Professor Yamanaka, who was quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds) in the debate on Second Reading? The professor has turned away from embryonic stem-cell research and is a leader in adult stem-cell research. He turned away because of what he saw through the microscope 10 years ago:
	"When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realised there was such a small difference between it and my daughters."
	This measure is a step too far, and we should oppose it.

Gerald Kaufman: There is no doubt whatever that in one regard there is no difference between different sides and different hon. Members in respect of their consciences: we all wish to find cures for baneful afflictions. The current issue of  The New Yorker has an article about a chef in New York who has tongue cancer. Attempts have been made over a long period to treat him, without any success whatever. The man has gone to the highest medical authorities in the United States. They have done their best to treat him, but at the same time, they have not said, "If only we had new opportunities for research, one day or other we might find a cure for the appalling affliction that this young man had." Whatever our view on the issue or the amendment, there is no difference between any of us in the Chamber in this respect: if research has a good chance of abating or curing dreadful diseases that afflict the human race, we would want it to proceed.
	Every single one of us in the House has had personal or family experience of the afflictions that are talked about in relation to the clause. In the case of my family, an elder brother and an elder sister had their final years made appalling—for themselves and my family—by the affliction of Alzheimer's disease. If there were a realistic prospect of research bringing us a cure or abatement of Alzheimer's disease, I would be first in the queue to support it.
	A nephew of mine, much younger than I, who was the husband of another of my sisters, suffered and eventually died from malign tumours of the brain—the cancer that was talked about. If there were a realistic prospect of doing something to prevent such deaths, or the death of my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Manchester, Gorton, Ken Marks, as a consequence of motor neurone disease—one of the most dreadful of all diseases—again, I would be first in the queue to support it. I am not talking about direct certainty because we can never have that, but the realistic prospect that there might be a cure or a way of preventing such appalling afflictions.
	There is, therefore, no difference between what any of us we want. There is probably little difference between any of us in our desire to advance research that has a realistic prospect of alleviating, curing and preventing the kind of diseases that I have talked about. I have a problem with the clause, however, and I shall be voting with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) for this reason. It is not that I do not want the ends that so many of my colleagues want, but the fact that there might be a minute prospect of gaining research dealing with such matters is not on the agenda. If it were on the agenda, those advancing the arguments in favour of the provisions would not be using the words "could" or "might" and would not be saying that there might conceivably be a prospect of making some advance. They simply want to try it. I saw a performance of "King Lear" the other day, and I was reminded of what King Lear said:
	"I will do such things,
	What they are, yet I know not".
	The provisions do not have a path; all they have is a possibility. The language, honestly used, by those who support the clause admit that it is a remote possibility.
	In addition, there is the question of the ethical nature of such research. We all have different views about ethics. One can be an atheist and have ethical views as strongly based as someone with the most profound religious convictions. The press have talked a great deal in a way that I do not much like about pressure from the Catholic Church on the issue. I have the most enormous respect for the Catholic Church, but I know that my Catholic constituents and Catholic priests would not claim that they had a monopoly on ethical views. I happen to have religious convictions, which feed into my views on the issues that we are considering.
	What is the nature of humanity? How far do we go and where do we stop? What are the limits and boundaries? If we permit the creation of a hybrid embryo now, what will we seek to permit next time, even though we have no idea where it will lead? There is no pointing in saying, "This is harmless." It may well be harmless—I do not know. However, if the issue were not controversial and difficult, the Bill would not be needed to authorise such research because it would already be lawful. The Bill is required to legalise hybrid stem-cell research, if it is to be permitted. If the matter were uncontroversial, there would be no need to place such controls on it. If there were no ethical dilemma or judgment to make, an Act of Parliament would not have to provide, "Scientists, we're going to let you do this, but, by gosh, we're going to watch you and control you and make sure you don't break the law." With no dilemma, there would be no law to break.
	Every hon. Member is considering her or his conscience. The fact that we have a conscience is an ingredient of the debate. I believe—like, I am sure, most hon. Members—that the planet does not belong to human beings alone, but to every creature on the face of the earth. However, it is no reflection on a dog or a tiger to say that their genetics have not equipped them with a conscience. As part of our genetic origin, we have been equipped with a conscience and it is no reflection on any hon. Member's views or convictions when I say that, if we have been endowed with a conscience, we have a duty to exercise it in making decisions about aspects of the Bill.
	I cast no aspersions on the way in which any hon. Member will vote at the end of the debate. All I can say is that, having considered the issues, the consequences and the appalling suffering of people whom I have known personally and whom I would have wished not to suffer, my conscience tells me to vote with the hon. Member for Gainsborough. I shall do that.

Mark Simmonds: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who has a neighbouring office to mine in the House and whom I have always found to be extremely charming and courteous. He is right that the debate is about individual conscience and that we all, irrespective of party, want science and research to proceed if it is possible to find solutions. Of course, that conscience needs to be exercised within an ethical framework. However, I do not agree that everything categorised as admixed embryos for today's debate shows no prospect of solutions to the genuine problems that exist. Indeed, I must correct him. He is incorrect to say that there has been no advance. Indeed, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has already granted two licences for cytoplasmic hybrid research, which entails various hurdles.
	It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend and fellow Lincolnshire Member of Parliament the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who is a distinguished and experienced parliamentarian. Although I do not agree with everything that he said—I will set out why—I respect and acknowledge his ethical position.
	There are three or four key reasons why I do not agree with the amendments that my hon. Friend and others have tabled. The first concerns therapies for illnesses and diseases. As I have said, research is already under way in that area involving cytoplasmic hybrids. There is no doubt that there is a shortage of human eggs for the production of embryonic stem-cell lines and research or that more are needed to enable such research to move faster. I am also keen to ensure that the House understands that there are significant differences between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells, particularly given the versatility of embryonic stem cells, which can transfer themselves into almost every cell in the body, which adult stem cells currently cannot do.

John Pugh: I am sure that hon. Gentleman will be aware of the briefing from the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council, which we have all received. It states:
	"We are not aware of any current need to generate true hybrid embryos".
	Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on that?

Mark Simmonds: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will come to that specific point in a moment. He is right to make that point, however, although there has been some dissent in the scientific community since Second Reading as to whether that is or is not the case.
	So, there has been a shift in the Government position, which seems to undermine the ethical situation. There was an extensive debate in the other place on the issue, but no reason seemed to be given, except that the Committee and those in another place could see no reason why true hybrids should not be included.
	The HFEA, many scientists and I believe that embryonic stem-cell research is necessary. It is a research requirement that the research could not be achieved by any other means than by embryonic research. As I have said, adult stem cells are different from embryonic stem cells. When visiting Newcastle university, I saw an embryonic stem cell, created from a human embryo, under a microscope, beating like a heart muscle. That has not been done using adult stem cells. When visiting Kyoto, it was clear that embryonic stem cells were essential for benchmarking for pluripotent adult stem cells, exciting though that prospect is.
	There are therefore significant differences between the different types of admixed embryos. I personally have no issue with the first three. I take issue only with true hybrids, which is what amendments Nos. 10 and 11 are about. The first reason is because, in the context of this debate, the Government have changed their position without clearly making their case. They are obviously uncertain about this.
	Furthermore, the scientific community has expressed serious reservations about true hybrids, and these have been quoted by other hon. Members on Second Reading. Indeed, since last Monday's debate, the distinguished stem-cell scientist, Dr. Robin Lovell-Badge has felt it necessary to clarify his position. Those who were here for the Second Reading debate will remember that he was cited as the leading scientist who felt that there was no need for human hybrid embryos to be approved under the legislation. He seems to have changed his mind, however—whether under pressure or otherwise remains unknown. During the oral evidence session of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, he said:
	"I cannot think of a good experiment to do now".
	However, in a letter that Dr. Lovell-Badge wrote to me after the Second Reading debate last week, he confirmed that there were primarily three areas in which true hybrids could be useful. I shall outline each one quickly if I may. The first involves the hamster test, which was permitted under the 1990 Act. That would be allowed to continue if these amendments were passed today. The second area involves artificial gametes, making sperm from pluripotent cells. The Minister confirmed on Second Reading that she would not allow such a provision to be in the Bill at all. The third area involves the use of what is called somatic cell nuclear transfer to understand the mechanisms by which human somatic cells can be reprogrammed from one cell type to another. It is the rationale for the construction and study of cytoplasmic human hybrid admixed embryos, which will be allowed under the Bill even if my amendment is passed.
	Even if Dr. Lovell-Badge were alone in having clarified his thoughts, there would be a serious issue to debate, but many other scientists have also expressed significant concerns about true hybrids. Lord Winston is another example, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough was absolutely right to quote Sir Liam Donaldson's evidence to the Committee that there was no clear scientific argument for this measure, and that it represented a step too far. Indeed, many other scientists in the stem-cell field, who do not wish to be quoted, have grave reservations. This is an anonymous quote:
	"I cannot understand why anyone would want to make true hybrids".
	These are true scientists in the field.
	There are significant differences between true hybrids and other hybrids. The true hybrid is not always at the human end of the spectrum. There is an ethical difference between a cell that is 99 per cent. human and one that is 50 per cent. human. Where is the principle for having a cut-off point of 50 per cent.? Should it be 50 per cent., 51 per cent., or 49 per cent.? Where will the legislation allow animal implantation if the cell is 51 per cent. animal rather than 51 per cent. human?

Mark Simmonds: I think that there is a very big difference between a cell that has a 51 per cent. animal and 49 per cent. human make-up and one that has a 99 per cent. human make-up. That is, of course, what we are debating today and it is the issue on which the House must make up its mind. There is a also a significant difference between the transfer of genes and chromosomes and the mixing of gametes, which are sex cells.
	I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify some of the issues we have raised. I await to hear her response before deciding whether to put these amendments to the test later.

Ian Gibson: Sir Alan— [Interruption.] I know he is a great cricketer in the making.
	It is, I think, the desire of all stem cell scientists one day to take an adult stem cell and reprogramme it to be just like an embryonic stem cell—one that can, with growth factors, be turned into different types of tissues. That is the "El Dorado" and claims have been made that we are moving in that direction, particularly, as has been pointed out, on the basis of work done by Yamanaka at Kyoto university. It is important to be critical of his work and to be aware of how far it goes, as it has been used as an example to show that adult cells have something major to offer in this field.
	We use viral vectors in this area; they are called retroviruses and they have a habit of carrying genes into the chromosomes of the cells where the retrovirus is incorporated. I believe there are 20 sites in the particular cells that Yamanaka has looked at. There are 20 copies of this virus lying there, influencing how the particular genes work. It is argued by some people that the cells turn into embryonic-type cells. However, anyone who looks at Yamanaka's paper and dissects it in detail, as I have, will see that it is nothing like that. There are many problems and flaws—and not just with the retrovirus, as it may be possible to get round that and find other ways to get the particular genes in to turn the cells back into the embryonic stage. Only very few of the colony cells that are treated develop any kind of resemblance to an embryonic cell. It is something in the region of 10 out of 50,000 cells that take on some of the properties associated with embryonic cells. Yamanaka is quite critical about it in his own paper. He says that there are
	"minor genetic alterations, which could not be detected by karyo-type analyses, or epigenetic alterations",
	which may be necessary for "cell induction". He continues:
	"These issues need to be elucidated in future studies."
	He goes on to say in respect of the particular human cells influenced by the virus that it is unlikely at this stage for anyone to be able to commit to saying that these cells are very like embryonic cells. Even that work, then, leaves a lot to be desired.
	We have heard about adult cord cells. It is absolutely true that they are very effective in certain haemopoietic diseases—blood diseases, anaemias and so on—but they are unable to turn into other cell types. Clearly, there is a lot yet to learn about adult cells and cord cells.
	We still have the mystery of life around us. It is still possible to take a plant cell and grow the whole plant. I have always wondered about the secrets of plants without for a minute thinking of turning a plant into a human being. Gosh, we might get funding from some source to look into that. There is some magical mystery there that we have to discover, in which we can turn cells around into different tissues. Plants have something to offer in that area.
	With the particular cells that would be made, we could treat single patients—that is true—but a culture of embryonic stem cells can be grown to treat lots of different patients with a particular condition. That is the El Dorado; that is the dream. Degenerative diseases can be handled in a larger arena than the single individual.
	Stem cells, too, are something quite new, and it is argued that we have not turned up anything yet. Stem cells were debated in this place in 2001, and were legitimised in terms of our being able to do any work with them. Their isolation was achieved in Wisconsin in the USA in 1998. The first licences in this country for doing any work with them came in 2003, so we are five years along the line and people are expecting major results that will turn the world around.
	How long does it take any good company in this country or in the USA to develop a drug? It takes 20 to 40 years. Do we ever hear people being critical of drug companies being slow? They have many, many tests to go through, which we should be glad about.

William Cash: In the light of what the hon. Gentleman said on Second Reading and in the light of what he is saying today about adult stem cell research, will he not apply the same criteria to that as well, in that clearly a time will have to elapse before we can be absolutely sure about either type of research? Has not the Bill therefore been introduced too soon?

Ian Gibson: I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. I think the proposed legislation allows for that in certain arenas, and for the fact that, as we said on Second Reading, many new discoveries and technologies will be developed out of human DNA understanding. The Bill must allow frameworks to be easily adapted. We do not want to have to have a debate every year for two or three days with Committees and so on; we need to make sure that we can take science on, and that when new science comes through that is useful, the legislation allows for that.
	I welcome the fact that we in this Chamber are debating this matter in the way that we are; that is important, because we are reflecting much of the feeling that there is among the general public, and that is how it should be. I am very keen for a Joint Committee to be established to look at ethical questions in the same way as do certain organisations and charities. There is no reason why we in this Chamber should not show ourselves in a good light by picking up on the general debates and arguments out among the public, and that is what we are doing now.
	What else could we do with these admixture cells? We could take nuclei from people with motor neurone disease—I see the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) has suddenly perked up at the mention of MNDand put that into the animal kernel or cytoplasm. Why do we use animal cells, in any case? Because we cannot get human eggs at this stage. The scientific community would not want to use animal cells in elements of its research if it could get human eggs. So we could look at what these MND genes do up until the 14-day stage, when such admixed embryos would have to be destroyed. We could see if the genes start working and what they do to the cells at this early stage. This is how research is done: we might not see what happens, but we can ask questionsand I suggest to the House that these questions are very much worth asking.

William Cash: It is difficult to follow the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), because he presents his case in such a reasonable fashion and he is enormously knowledgeable. I was thinking about the fact that when our debates took place on these issues in 1984 the atmosphere in the House was dramatic; one might say that it was electric. Some hon. Members may recall the events. I believe that on Second Reading or Report one hon. Member broke the Speaker's Chairor rather the shelf on which the Speaker puts his paperssuch were the emotions running at that time. Some of that resulted from the fact that a petition signed by 2 million people had been presented. I had proposed the idea of such a petition to the Life conference in August of the year in which I got elected. Perhaps I was a little presumptuous in doing so, but, on the other hand, I feel as strongly now as I did then about the question of boundaries, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) referred.
	When listening to the debate and the reasonableness with which hon. Members who are favour of this research put their case, we are perhaps in danger of forgetting something that, as I see it, lies at the very heart of the issue. This is not just a matter of religious belief, which I certainly hold; it is also a question of practicalities. On Second Reading, I put a question to the House and to those in favour of the research, and I have been thinking about it a great deal since: even if this research could be acceptedI could not accept it, because I object to it in principleand it were to go ahead, for whom would it be made available? Who would benefit from it? The hon. Member for Norwich, North nods, and that is certainly an important question that we have to address. I am afraid that there is a group of people who are avowed eugenicists.
	As part of my research for this debate, I looked at a book by Professor David Galton of Barts hospital, a pre-eminent and knowledgeable person in this field. He raises that very question. He also opens Pandora's box intellectually and legislatively by making it clear that, as far as he is concerned, when it comes to regulation:
	It may ultimately be better to allow individuals to decide for themselves as to whether or not abortion
	in this instance
	is acceptable; it becomes a matter for personal conscience, something to be judged on a case-by-case basis. This may be the way to manage all the newer eugenic techniques.
	We want to get this matter out into the open. There is no doubt that there is a group of people who are avowed eugenicists [ Interruption. ] Well, David Galton himself appears to be one of that group.
	When it comes to the commercialisation of the procedures, Professor Galton points out that some 80 per cent. of assisted reproductive procedures are paid for privately. What troubles me is that, given the problems with AIDS, sanitation, lack of water and world mass poverty, there is no realistic prospect that those procedures will be made universally available, even if they were acceptable

William Cash: They may well be, but I still ask the question, given the vast amounts of money involved. As I said, about 80 per cent. of assisted reproduction procedures are paid for privately. Whatever the objectives of relieving pain and suffering, or improving health, it is almost impossible that the benefits of such research could be made universally available.
	There is a strange irony in all this. Professor Galton says:
	The new eugenic technology
	as he calls it
	may become a vital weapon to prevent a future genetic deterioration of our species.
	He refers to the decline of some species as a result of the loss of diversity in the gene pool and points out:
	Our own genetic decline may take a different form. One hundred years ago some people would never have been able to reproduce. People with early-onset diabetes, premature heart attacks, malignant high blood pressure...may have survived into their reproductive period, but were too unhealthy to have children. Nowadays
	and herein lies the irony
	improvements in medical and surgical treatments allow such people to lead an almost normal reproductive life. Before the discovery and use of insulin
	as the hon. Member for Norwich, North pointed out
	early-onset diabetics had almost no chance of having children of their own.
	Professor Galton continues:
	The consequences of these medical advances are that parents can more freely transmit their disease-related genes to their children. These defective genes would be expected to accumulate from generation to generation in ever increasing numbers.
	It is important to reflect on that. He continues:
	To prevent this we may need in the future to screen embryos for disease-related genes and if possible to repair them at an early stage using the most powerful tools we have. The new eugenic technology may play a prominent role in this.
	That is the killer point.
	It is a strange irony, and in many ways a tragedy, that however beneficial the advances in medical science might have been, somebody who makes claims for eugenic technology now says that one of the cardinal arguments for this new embryonic researchI leave aside the issue of adult stem-cell research, which is the route that we should go downis to rectify the difficulties to which those advances have led. That is an extraordinary situation, which creates real dilemmas, but we need to reflect on the fact that life is not perfect. Furthermore, however much we might seek to do so, we cannot, for example, extend our lives indefinitely. At the heart of some of the moral questions that we must struggle with is whether we are not crossing a Rubicon to try to achieve the unachievable. It is not just a question of science or ethics, but of realities, on which all the best morality is ultimately based. We must be extremely cautious. The idea that the research would be available primarily for those who could afford it is very worrying. I noted with considerable concern Professor Galton's comments about that.
	I also read a newspaper articleI think that it was in the  Evening Standard last week.  [Interruption.] I do not vouch for its veracity; if it was wrong, I stand corrected. It suggested that some of the people involvedI might as well mention their names, as they were in the public presssuch as Professor Ian Craft and, I think, Dr. Taranissi, were earning phenomenal amounts from such research: between 3 million and 5 million a year. I hope that they were not misrepresented in any way.

William Cash: I perfectly understand that argument. I am not suggesting that we should stop all research. It is just that as far as I am concerned, while we have alternatives such as adult stem-cell research, which I believe can be further developed, we should not go down the route of embryonic cell research. Ultimately, that crosses the boundaries that I personally regard as unacceptable. I take my hon. Friend's point, but I still worry about the matter a great deal.
	On the question of Dolly the sheep and the developments in that field, I went through the Medical Research Council account some years ago and I think I am right to say that the Roslin institute, which is headed up by the MRC, sold the patents for Dolly the sheep to a commercial enterprise for 1. I found that pretty astonishing, and it causes me to worry about the commercial aspects of the operation and the research. We need to be conscious that there is a vast amount of commercial investment in this field, and research is not done exclusively for altruistic purposes, although that may play a part in the process. That needs to be put on the record.
	Finally, I have already made a point about the Nuremberg principles. It seems quite clear that we ought to have a provision in the Bill, one way or another, that excludes embryonic cell research when adult stem-cell research has been proved viable. If adult stem-cell research becomes viable, it should then be the only kind of research available. It is ultimately about the dignity of man. This is not exclusively a question of religious belief. People with many different religious convictions hold the same views as I do, as do other hon. Members who have signed the amendments.
	The figure of 14 days seems to me to be somewhat arbitrarywhy not 12, or 16?

Evan Harris: I do not think that that is right, and I wanted to return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) in an intervention. The way in which science works is that before someone gets to the HFEA stage, they have to get funding. They must get ethical approval and they have a research proposal. That is a huge job. People's jobs depend on being able to get permission, and scientists apply to the HFEA only at an extremely late stage. It would be a scandal if they had public or charity funding and subsequently failed to get that permission. In many cases, there is an iterative process between the authority and scientists, and they do not get approval until the end of a long process. That is what Lord Winston and others, including those at Newcastle, complain about at length. They complain that the process is too burdensome; other hon. Members are now complaining that it is not burdensome enough. If no one is happy, that suggests that the authority has it about right. A walkover it is not.

David Burrowes: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that when considering keeping all avenues open, there was a proper framework in the 1990 Act that had respect for the human embryo? It did not legalise full hybrids, but via the hamster test, it legalised the testing of human sperm. There is a distinction there, under a framework, that is based on some ethical principles.

Evan Harris: I shall come to that point. I would not say, however, it is just the view of those on the Conservative Front Bench. Hon. Members in all parties have sympathy with the amendment, and I shall deal with it in due course.
	I want to stress that we are not the only country that permits such research. Significant numbers of countries do so. Indeed, countries such as the United States have no regulation in the private sector. The fact that we have tight regulation and, yes, burdensome regulation, means that many scientists recognise that this country has deliberated over the issue and that there is a framework. The flipside, I suppose, of the fact that most scientists are successful is that there have been no prosecutions for research on embryos without a licence, and there are plenty of people looking for opportunities to make accusations. To the extent that no prosecutions indicate success, one can say that the process has been successful.
	The 1990 Act, together with the 2001 cloning regulations, voted for under a free vote in the House, permitted cybrid embryo creation and research. The legal advice that the HFEA got and that the Select Committee on Science and Technology got was that the 1990 Act and the regulations permitted it. Whether it was envisaged in 1990 is a separate matter, but the Government are putting the legal advice and the HFEA policy that is based on it into statute. People who are worried about such matters should be grateful to the Government for placing them on to a statutory footing so that there is clarity and we do not rely on the randomor perhaps not so randomviews of a judge or judges in the High Court or the Court of Appeal, and do not get bogged down in judicial review.

Evan Harris: I would prefer not to go into that because I am sure that we will revert to it and not sure whether it is in the remit of our discussion, but it has been debated extensively in the House of Lords.
	Let me consider whether embryonic stem-cell therapy has uses. I share the concern about giving false hope. I hope that the record will show that I have never claimed that we are considering the certain prospect of cures and treatments for millions of people with serious diseases. Scientists hope that that will happen, and there is an expectation that we will learn about at least the causes of disease and be able to test treatments in a Petri dish in a cell model, which is difficult to obtain. It is hard to get Parkinson's disease cells from patients because they are in the brain and there are ethical questions about obtaining them. However, if they can be grown from an embryonic stage and drugs can be tested on them, that must offer hope.
	Although the letter in  The Times was signed by several people from all over the world, the group is not authoritative. If one asks authoritative groups of people, who study the matter in scientific committeesthe Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the medical research charities, which jealously guard the money that they raise and do not want to waste it on useless treatmentsone finds that they all support the research. There is a fundamental flaw in the letter from Professor Scolding and others, which states:
	We... question the scientific validity of proposals to create such embryonic combinations currently before the UK Parliament.
	The UK Parliament is not deciding whether those entities should be created but whether the HFEA should have the ability to approve a licence, if a scientific case is made to show that it is necessary or desirable for medical research, and there is no way in which to do that that does not involve embryos.

Evan Harris: Indeed. I agree and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his advocacy of that cause.
	The outrageous allegation has been made that there have been no treatments despite conducting such research for decades. That is simply not the case. Adult stem cells have featured in clinical trials since the 1950s and it would therefore be a shock if we did not have therapies as a result.
	The first human embryonic stem cell lines were derived in the UK by Stephen Minger's group at King's college in 2003. The first ES cells worldwide were created only in 1998. Since it takes 15 years to get a molecule into patients, it is not surprising that it will take some years yet to experience the clinical benefits of the research. Arguing that it has not been done in five years, so it should therefore be thrown out, is preposterous and the worst argument that I have heard from opponents of the research.
	Proposals for trials are currently being considered. It is not true that the US Food and Drug Administration has rejected an application for a trial of spinal nerve repair. It has put a clinical hold on the trial while it asks further questions. However, the relevant company is optimistic that it can pursue it. There are also applications for treating macular degeneration using pigmented epithelium cells from an embryonic derivation. We have to be patientbelieve me, scientists are as frustrated as parliamentarians, if not more so, and patients are more frustrated yet.
	The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) felt that there was an opportunity cost because of all the effort going into embryonic stem cell research rather than adult stem-cell research, but that is a misunderstanding of how science works. It is very difficult to secure funding for something if there is another way of doing it. Scientists have to put their proposals up for peer review, which is designed to say, This is the wrong way to do it; do it this way.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Gentleman has spoken about his second categorythose who are quite happy with what one might call traditional research, but who are anxious about hybrid research. I think that I fall into that category. The reason is not to do with a philosophical debate on the difference between a hybrid and a wholly human cell; rather, it is to do with a general feeling in societyor perhaps a failure on my partthat we do not have an understanding of the risks involved should something go wrong, of whether a treatment be developed or of whether a hybrid cell in some form should be put into a human. There is a general fear in the outside world, but no clear argument from the scientific community about how small those risks are.

Dawn Primarolo: A great deal of this subject has already been covered in the debate, but I want to respond briefly to a number of the points that have been raised and to refer to the Government amendments. First, it is important to put on record that a lack of human eggs is creating a significant barrier to the continuation of embryonic stem-cell research. Researchers have looked for a pragmatic solution to the shortage, and they believe that they have found one in the form of animal eggs and in the creation of human admixed embryos.
	The Bill sets out a clear definition of human admixed embryos and will ensure that all such embryos are regulated and may not be created without a licence. The Government amendments reaffirm the purpose of the scientific definition in the Bill. Any licence application to create human admixed embryos for research will need to prove to the HFEA that the proposed use of the embryo is necessarynot simply that the scientists want to try itand that no other route of research would enable the development of the science to understand the development of the treatment.

Dawn Primarolo: The statutory purposes are clearly laid out in the Bill, building on the provisions in the 1990 Act. I do not remember whether the hon. Gentleman was in the House in 1990. I was, and I remember that the matter was fully debated at that time, and that many of these purposes were considered.
	No human admixed embryo that has been created may be implanted into a woman or an animal, or be cultured for more than 14 days or after the appearance of the primitive streak. Equally, any research done using human embryos must satisfy the HFEA that it is necessary or desirable for one of the statutory purposes. This research is about giving scientists the ability, within clear boundarieswhich have been discussed in the House before, particularly in 1990within which to advance technologies that could help in the development of treatments for devastating degenerative conditions, in continuing research into male infertility and in learning more about what makes embryonic stem cells so different from any other cell.
	The use of animal eggs will provide a valuable resource to embryo research scientists, giving them the ability to perfect the techniques that could one day help to develop our understanding of diseases and to speed up the development of their cures. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) made a very eloquent speech earlier. I make no apology to the House for saying that we cannot promise that this research will definitely lead to those treatments; it is an aspiration that it could do so, if it is permitted, along with the rest of the research that is being carried out.
	Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 41 and 42 would prohibit the creation of all forms of human admixed embryos for any purpose, including cytoplasmic hybrid embryos. A major barrier to continuing embryonic stem-cell research is the lack of human eggs for use in research, as they can be obtained only through the stimulation of a woman's ovaries. That procedure is not without risk, and the best eggs are quite rightly used in treatment. Researchers have been looking for a solution to the shortage, and they believe that they have found one in the form of animal eggs, which are widely available and believed to be as useful in the creation of embryos as human eggs. If successful, they could advance embryonic stem-cell research by many years.
	The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), in speaking to amendments Nos. 10 and 11, sought to prohibit embryos created from the mixing of human and animal gametesthe so-called true hybrids. I must admit that I was not clear about the ethical principle that the hon. Gentleman was drawing on. In fairness to him, however, let me say that that was also reflected in the way in which the Government proceeded in their consideration of the matter. The hon. Gentleman asked for an explanation.
	The Government took into account the arguments of the joint pre-legislative scrutiny Committeea Committee of this House and the other placewhich saw no clear reason to preclude such activity within the regulatory controls of the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority. Any project to create true hybrids would need to satisfy the research licensing criteria that the work is necessary or desirable for a statutory research purpose and that the use of the embryos is necessary. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who chaired the Joint Committee, said on Second Reading that
	once we mix in any elements of animal, the principle of using hybrids for research purposes is established...That is the point that the Committee was trying to make; once we go down that road
	which we already have
	it seems illogical to rule something out because of a particular mix.[ Official Report, 12 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 1068.]
	The Government agreed with that conclusion.
	The Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council have written to say that true hybrids offer significant potential for research to improve our understanding of infertility, sperm function and stem-cell developmentand must not be prohibited. Given that the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness could not set out a clear reason for this particular deletion, I urge the House to resist his amendment.

Dawn Primarolo: I am eternally grateful that the whole Government and Ministers in the Department of Health were able, through this process, to listen, learn and come to the correct decision. I sincerely hope that the House will do the same this evening and reject the amendment. Clearly, the public consultation, the drafting of the Bill, pre-scrutiny by a Committee of both Houses and then a full debate in the other place have demonstrated that the decision is now in the right place.

Dawn Primarolo: No, I will not. Other Members want to speak and I am trying to make some progress. I have been absolutely candid with the House on this matter.
	The usefulness of the hamster test was mentioned in the evidence given to the Committee in 2007, which cited the value of using hamster eggs over and above other assessments of male fertility. In recent correspondence to the Department, Professor Lynn Fraser made a clear argument for the continuation of this work, citing the use of hamster eggs as the best option for testing treatments designed to increase the ability of human sperm to fertilise an egg. Such research is valuable in trying to find ways to overcome mail infertility. Prohibiting its use and the use of this technique seems completely unjustified, especially as this prohibition would be a step backwards from the position enshrined in the 1990 Act.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) moved amendment No. 44, which deals with embryos. The Bill allows for the alteration of the genetic structure of embryos for research purposes only. It prohibits the transfer of such embryos to a woman. That is underpinned by an international consensus that prohibits such practice and the Bill also reinforces the point.
	Government amendments Nos. 33 to 39 amend the definition of human admixed embryos. The Bill uses the term human admixed embryo as an umbrella term for four types of embryo containing human and animal genetic material ranging from those that arein simple terms, as the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness says99 per cent. genetically human through to those that are 50 per cent. genetically human. The amendments are a response to the debate in the other place, where clarification of the definitions was sought. The Government amendments add a catch-all category to the definition of human admixed embryos in the Bill, providing further clarity of the scope of the term. In addition to the four precise scientific definitions already in the Bill, that will ensure that all new forms of embryos that may be developed that contain both human and animal DNA will, where the animal DNA does not predominate, fall within the regulation.
	The Bill and these provisions are about ensuring that the wishes of this House for this area of research, as set down in 1990, are respected so that regulation can be carried out by the HFEA. The Government amendments improve the Bill, but I sincerely hope that hon. Members will reject all the other amendments and support both the Government and this clause.

David Burrowes: I begin by making a point that I would have liked to raise by intervening on the Minister earlier. It concerns Government amendment No. 34. The problem of definition has been an issue for this House and the other place. Some have sought to define what is human, what is animal and then what is a human admixed embryo. In other provisions, the Government have sought to do that by way of illustrative examples. When dealing with legislation that needs to be applied by regulationsno doubt it will be challenged in due course by lawyers and othersit is important that the House at least leave the Bill in a state of clarity and with clear definitions so that we know what we are dealing with, although that is extremely complex. The Joint Committee, on which I sat, challenged the Government's previous position. It is still an issue of concern. In the other place, Lord Mackay of Clashfern introduced an amendment to provide some clarity of definition about what is human, what is animal and what is a mixture of the two.
	Government amendment No. 34 attempts to provide clarity on the issue of defining what might be subject to regulation. The question, though, for the Minister, which perhaps highlights the problems that we have over definition is, where would Government amendment No. 34 capture that embryo which is created by what is called tetraploid complementation? Those embryos are normally created by adding embryonic stem cells to an animal embryo that has been altered to have double the number of chromosomesthat is, it is a tetraploid. The embryonic stem cells form the foetus while the tetraploid embryo forms the placenta.
	In the Joint Committee, I questioned Professor Lovell-Badge, who replied:
	You may start off with an embryo which is 20 per cent. human and end up with something which is 60 per cent. human or vice versa.
	The reality is that this science is a moveable feastmoving towards human and animal. That causes profound concern, not least in the area of tetraploid complementation, which at present might be subject to Home Office regulations in animal legislation, rather than regulation under such a Bill. I invite the Minister to respond on that point and say whether consideration might be given to dealing with that area of researchnot leaving it to regulation, but ensuring that it is dealt with by primary means.
	Moving to the general positions in the Bill, I support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). Concerns have been expressed and we often hear the refrain, All avenues must be kept open. However, when one looks through the Bill, one sees that all avenues are not left open. The Government would wish us to close off various avenues in various arenas. Today, tomorrow and during consideration by the Public Bill Committee, there will be debate on certain avenues that have been cut off, not least those concerning sex selection.
	The House is charged with the duty of building an ethical framework that can properly lead to good science, but my position and that of hon. Friends and hon. Members who have spoken is based on good science but also good ethics. The framework must be built that is sound, lasts for a considerable time and deals with future developments, but is based solidly on ethics and a firm belief in and respect for human life and the dignity of human life, which the House needs to send out and establish clearly in the Bill.
	There is perhaps no greater duty on the House than ensuring that we are clear about that. It cannot be left to chance. It cannot be left to whim. It cannot be left to saying to scientists, Let's give it a chance and see how far it goes. It is important that we ensure that we properly respect those principles of human life, certainly when we are dealing with human admixed embryos, and it is incumbent on us to achieve a Bill that has not only clarity of definition, but clarity of ethics.
	The Government would wish us to be a world leader in this area of stem-cell research. We can all extol the virtues of stem-cell research and regenerative medicine. Indeed, last week in Paris there was a conference to promote responsible regenerative medicine. We could all sign up to that and to cures that come as a result of it. The context of the conference was cord blood stem-cell research. We have already heard from hon. Friends and hon. Members about the developments in relation to cord blood source, which have led and are leading us beyond the normal route of blood immune deficiency to the regeneration of nerves, bone, cartilage, tendon, vessel tissue and beyond. That is an exciting area, but sadly this country is lagging way behind in the league table for collecting cord blood. I understand that we are 13th, and we should do much more in those areas.
	It is important that we consider the context of stem-cell research, although we should not concentrate on just that. We should consider the clinical trials throughout the world. There are 1,987 in relation to adult stem-cell research and 106 on cord blood. There are none on embryonic stem-cell research. That is a significant context, but it should not necessarily be given undue weight when one is considering the context of the Bill.
	The human admixed embryo provisions seek to take us to a new level of the human embryo stem-cell project. We perhaps need to throw some water on the high expectations for embryo stem-cell research. We should take note and be cautious in relation to the fact that embryo stem-cell lines do not work in mature tissues. That is the problem that many scientists are seeking to fix. Embryo stem-cell lines develop tissues. There are fundamental engineering problems. Once embryo stem-cell lines are differentiated, the concern is that what is involved will stop being a stem cell and lose its stemness. It has difficulty turning into a tissue type.
	The concern, though, is that we do not simply deal with the problems of embryo stem-cell research; the issue is human hybrid embryos and whether there are alternatives. In the development of embryo stem-cell research, one has to focus on cloned human embryos. Those are particularly difficult to create. They are very inefficient and defective. There is difficulty that leads to abnormality. When one looks at the research, one sees that there are problems. The problems develop when dealing with the structure of cloned human animal embryos.
	The concern goes beyond risk of infection, immune logical reactions and the tumours that develop. The development of cloned human animal embryos represents taking another leap. That is the focus of the Bill, which will establish that we must move into the area of cytoplasmic hybrids. Taking the scientist's view, one struggles to see how one could get to the point of curing diseases, which is what we all want.
	The Government put it forwardone has to take them at their wordthat cytoplasmic hybrids are essential for groundbreaking research and that they will produce those medical cures for genetic neurodegenerative diseases, but if one goes back a stage to cloned human embryos the reality is that they cannot properly be used for therapies for genetic diseases. The genetic flaw would remain in the tissue, as the genes would come from a person with a disease.
	If one took a leap towards cloned animal human embryos, it would be even worse, as they would contain the genetic flaws and the additional genetic and epigenetic flaws because of the way they are created. The human genome would have been reprogrammed with reprogramming factors from the animal egg, and there would be a degree of mismatch between relevant human and animal material. There would also be the risk of the creation of new diseases. As I mentioned earlier, there may be the risk of immune rejection, as mitochondria have proteins that can cause an immune reaction. Some animal mitochondrial proteins would be present in the cells, and they might cause an even stronger immune reaction than human mitochondria.
	The concern is that, looking back, embryonic stem cells have caused dangerous tumours. That led to the withholding of the US Food and Drug Administration licence for clinical trials of embryonic stem cells to go ahead. But it is far too dangerous medically to attempt to use embryo stem-cell lines for therapies. Looking to take that a stage further in terms of human animal cloned embryos, it would be even less safe to use them for therapies.
	In the other place, noble Lords said that cloned human animal embryos would be used for transplant. That certainly is not the case, and I was grateful that Dr. Stephen Minger, speaking to the Associate Parliamentary Health Group on 23 April, made it clear that they could not be used for transplant.
	The Government say that we need cybrids because they will help to inform people about genetic diseases when used with specific cell lines from patients with such diseases. However, we need to consider ethical alternatives. Much has been said about the investigation of motor neurone disease. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) has said that we need to find the avenue for progress, but what is that avenue?
	The Government seek to be a world leader. Since they presented the Bill there has been rapid progress in other areas of alternative stem cell research, not least in the area of induced pluripotent cells. On Second Reading we heard mention of Professor Wilmut, creator of Dolly the sheep. He had planned to create disease-specific cell lines using so-called cybrids to investigate motor neurone disease, but abandoned that approach very publicly a few months ago, stating that reprogrammed adult cellsinduced pluripotent stem cellsshowed much more potential. That was another avenue for research. He intends to make motor-neurone-disease-specific cell lines using IPS cells.

Patrick Cormack: The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) said he did not want to canonise. I want neither to canonise nor to demonise. I fully respect the views of those fellow Christians who believe there is nothing morally wrong in moving down the line of having mixed embryos and so on, but I am afraid that I take a different linean absolutist line. I think there are cases where one has to face up to the fundamental question of whether the ends justify the means. While we have all received letters, such as that read out by the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), from people suffering from grievous diseases and we all wish to see cures, we must also accept the mortality of man. We have to accept that there are certain things that man should not seek to do. The mixture of embryosthe creation of something that is part animal and part humanis a line beyond which I am not prepared to go. Therefore, I do not support the modest amendments proposed by my Front-Bench colleagues, and I do support the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. I hope very much that the House will agree to it, although I fear it will not. I shall therefore console myself with the immortal words of Willie Whitelaw: that things are never either as good or as bad as they seem. The step we are contemplating taking is a very serious one. Great as is my respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) and others, I believe that the cardinals have it, and it is in accordance with that that I shall vote tonight.

It being three hours after the commen cement of proceedings on  clause 4 ,  The Chairman  put  forthwith  the Question already proposed from the Chair , pursuant to Order [12 May]
	 The Committee divided: Ayes 176, Noes 336.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 It being more than three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill,  The Chairman  put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour, pursuant to Order [12 May].
	 Amendment made: No. 33, in page 4, line 14, at end insert
	'(4A) A licence cannot authorise keeping or using a human admixed embryo in any circumstances in which regulations prohibit its keeping or use.'. [Mr. David.]
	 Amendment proposed: No. 10, in page 4, line 14, at end insert
	'(4A) A licence cannot authorise the creation of an embryo using
	(a) human gametes and animal gametes, or
	(b) one human pronucleus and one animal pronucleus.'. [Mark Simmonds.]
	 Question put , That the amendment be made:
	 The Committee divided: Ayes 223, Noes 286.

David Burrowes: On a point of order, Mr. Hood. I am concerned as to whether amendment No. 31 is within the remit of the Bill, given Lord Darzi's letter of 31 January in response to a similar amendment in the other place. He made it clear that regulatory oversight by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority finishes once a stem cell line is derived and deposited in the UK stem cell bank. Any stem cell lines intended for human use will need to comply with the requirements of the Human Tissue Authority and are, therefore, subject to its regulations and to the Human Tissue Act 2004. As that is not the subject of the Bill and as other amendments, not least mine dealing with the collection of umbilical cord blood, were within the remit of the Human Tissue Act and the Human Tissue Authority, I ask the judgment of the Chair as to whether the amendment is in any way relevant, given that it is not within the remit of the Bill.

Evan Harris: Amendment No. 31 is important, but I take this opportunity to speak to the other group of amendments in my name, and to deal with the issue of saviour siblings, which is clearly one that will dominate the debate.
	Embryo selection can be negative or positive. Negative embryo selection, which has been lawful under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, means that if a family suffers from an inheritable disease, they are ableeven if otherwise fertileto have in vitro fertilisation. If it is successful, embryos can be gathered and tested at an early stage, while outside the woman, by the removal of one cell. That has not been found to damage the embryo and the testing of the cell enables clinicians to identify whether each embryo is affected by the condition. If an embryo is affected, the couple undergoing treatment can avoid selecting that embryo for implantation and use one of the unaffected embryos.
	Since 1990, the HFEA has licensed such negative selection on a number of occasions and families have benefited by avoiding inheritable disease, particularly when they already have a child significantly affected by the disease. That is a reasonable thing to do and I absolutely reject the suggestion that helping a family to avoid having a child with a serious disease is in any way discriminatory against the disabled. There is a complete difference between seeking to alleviate or avoid suffering by such techniques and discriminating against disabled or sick human beings after they are born. Indeed, many of the doctors who work so hard to provide pre-implantation genetic diagnosis also work hard both to provide in utero surgery to avoid or ameliorate congenital defects and to look after children born with serious diseases. Although I realise that views on the issue run strongly, I hope that the allegation of discrimination is not levelled against clinicians, parents and those of us who think that PGD is legitimate to help people to avoid having a child with a forecast serious genetic disorder. Such an allegation borders on the offensive.
	My second point is that when taking a cell to check whether a child is affected by a disease it is also possible to carry out other tests on the cellfor example, tissue-typing. I shall briefly describe two cases. The first involves the Hashmi family whose child was very sick with thallassemia and needed a transplant, but none was available from the bone marrow or cord banks, as is often the case for families with certain genotypesparticularly, but not exclusively, those from ethnic minorities. The Hashmis needed to check whether their next child would have the same disease, and whether they could select an embryo who did not have it. They also wanted to see whether they could get a tissue match. The HFEA said, after serious consideration, that that was a legitimate thing to do, and the courts upheld that decision as lawful under the 1990 Act. I understand that the Hashmis were unfortunately not successful in conceiving.
	The next case that came along was that of the Whitakers, a family from Oxfordshire. They had a child who was seriously ill with diamond blackfan anaemia, who was kept alive by weekly transfusions and nightly treatments of an infusion of a drug. It was not an inherited disease but a sporadic mutation, so when they had another childthey wanted to have another child anywaythey did not need to test the embryo for the genetic disease, but they did wish to use a tissue-typing technique. They were fertile but they wanted to have IVF so that they could select an embryo that was a tissue match, in order that a wanted, loved child could provide a cord blood transplant for the afflicted older sibling.
	The family were denied that opportunity by the HFEA, which disagreed with its own ethics committee. It later changed its mind, but in the interim the Whitakers went to Chicago for the treatment. It was successful, and they had another child, who was healthy. That child's cord blood was used in a transplant for the older sibling. The procedure was successful, and the sibling was cured. As a result of the intervention, instead of neither of the two children being alive and healthy, they were both alive and healthy. That makes the case more eloquently than any speech or policy document could.
	What are the problems? Well, I do not think that there are any. I do not accept the allegation that there will be a burden on the saviour sibling. There is no evidence of that. There is evidence that if the intervention does not take place the sibling will suffer bereavement, because the young child will be born into a family who have a seriously diseased child who may die. It would be a benefit if that could be avoided. As I said on Second Reading, even if we could forecast circumstances in which there would be a burden, those potential circumstances have to be balanced against the certainty of harm if the family is not allowed to have a second child in the way that I have described.
	We do not know whether the removal of a cell creates long-term harm to the embryo; it is fair to say that the technology is relatively new. However we do know that so farthousands of children have been born following pre-implantation genetic diagnosisthere does not appear to be any harm, although it is important to keep observing. We do know that the birth of many sick children has been avoided, and healthy ones have been born instead, and that a handful of saviour siblings have been permitted. The HFEA has made it clear that it will not allow the procedure if there is an alternative that does not involve the destruction of embryos, so if there is a bone marrow match or a cord blood match, it is likely that that will be pursued first, because such a transplant is clearly less onerous for the parents than IVF, which is burdensome, and pregnancy.

Evan Harris: It is most likely that the procedure will be possible only in a handful of cases, so we are not talking about widespread tissue-typing of a lot of embryos. Of course, many parents will choose not to have IVF and will instead take their chances, which are one in four.
	Clear evidence has been presented to me that a tissue-matched transplant from a relative is more likely to be successfulat least in the case of diamond blackfan anaemia, from which the Whitaker child sufferedthan a tissue-matched transplant from someone who is unrelated. We all support the idea of a bone marrow bank and umbilical cord blood banks, but they will never be a complete replacement. However, if those banks expand, there will be less need for procedures of the kind that we are discussing. I do not think that we need to have the discussion that I fear we will have about the merits of umbilical cord blood banking and bone marrow banking, such as that provided by the estimable Anthony Nolan Trust. The measure is self-limiting; if cord blood and bone marrow transplants work, the procedure will not be done. The measure relates to the few circumstances in which the procedure will still be required.
	As far as my party is concerned, there is to be a free vote on the issue. I know that some of my hon. Friends do not share my view, but I think that the procedure should take place. We are not talking about eugenics. Eugenics is a state-sponsored scheme of building in genetic advantages, or excluding certain genetic conditions. The procedure is not state-sponsored at all. It is for doctors and patients to agree to the procedure together, under informed consent, and then apply to the regulator for permission. It is not eugenics, and it is offensive to suggest that it is.
	I should like to move on to the other significant amendments in the group. First, I want to talk about the amendments in my name concerning the use of the term abnormality in the Bill. That wording causes a problem. It allows genetic testing for a genetic abnormality. There are some characteristics that, together, might cause serious diseases or life-threatening diseaseor whatever the threshold happens to bebut that cannot properly be called abnormalities. I have had a briefing from leading geneticists, including Marcus Pembury, that says that if the Government do not make this minor amendment, they may find themselves fighting a High Court case in which opponents of PGD will say, This particular combination of normal genes, which causes a serious disease in this individual, is not an abnormality, so how can you say that you're testing for an abnormality, according to the terms of the Bill, when the problem is caused simply by a combination of normal components?
	The best comparison is with rhesus disease. Carrying certain rhesus factorspositive or negativecan cause serious disease in a second child, but the rhesus factor is not an abnormality; it just so happens in that some cases, it is bad news for a child. I therefore urge the Government to consider the alternative form of words that I have suggested, which includes reference to a harmful gene or combination of genes, because that is what we are talking about. In the other House, it was suggested that the phrase genetic characteristic be usedthat is, a genetic characteristic that caused serious disease, not a genetic characteristic that was being screened for; we have to be clear about that. Either of those wordings would solve the problem, and I should be interested to know whether the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo) can be certain that her form of words will not be challenged.
	Finally, I turn to amendment No. 31. It is linked with amendment No. 32, which would amend schedule 2. Amendment No. 32 is the key one; it is very important, but I do not have time to give it its due. It would insert a new provision that would enable the HFEA to give a licence for therapy as well as for research. The problem with the current Bill is that if, one day, the research works, and it is possible to derive from embryos stem cells that could be used to treat, say, diabetics by providing new, insulin-producing cells, or Parkinson's disease, it is not clear whether it would be possible to create embryos and use or store them for the purpose of therapy. Clearly, clinical trials are covered by the term research, so it will be possible to create, store and use an embryo to provide stem cells for use in clinical trials. One cannot keep doing clinical trials once a treatment is known to work; it is unethical to randomise someone to placebo and someone else to a treatment that is known to be effective. At that point, one has to stop trialling, and instead deliver treatment. At that point, it is not clear whether the original embryo, from which the new stem cells are derived, will be covered, under the HFEA, by a licence, because one can get a licence only for treating infertility or for research.
	The Government are right to say that the stem-cell therapies will be controlled by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and, before that, by the Human Tissue Authority. That is not in doubt, and I am sure that the joint statement from those bodies and the HFEA will lead to a seamless transfer. The problem is that if, once research trials work, a company called, say, Stem Cells R Us comes along and says, We can produce embryonic stem cells for treatment and sell them to the NHS as therapy, it will not get a licence under the Bill, because it cannot show what the research ends are. It is not good enough for the Government to say that there will always be quality assurance testing on any stem cells derived and that that counts as research. Quality assurance is not research. Research must pass muster on clinical research ethics, and a clear programme of research with inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria is therefore required.
	The Government gave two different answers when the issue was raised in the LordsI can send the Minister the exact quotes. That makes their position difficultif their position is that there is no problembecause if there were a challenge in court, it would be found that Ministers in the Lords said diametrically opposed things in Committee and on Report. In Committee, the Minister said that such a provision would be a step too far, because it would raise a series of issues about, for example, how many embryos per stem cell line are needed for therapy. On Report, the Government changed their mind, when the Minister said that such a provision would be unnecessary, because the practice is already permitted under the 1990 Act. The Government stuck to that line in the letter that was referred to in the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) and on Third Reading.
	That will not do. It is necessary to clarify the situation, which would not be a step too far. Indeed, Baroness Warnock expressed concern in Committee that despite everything we went through on cloning regulations, which related to conducting stem-cell research and providing therapies, the Government say that they would permit research but would not permit the fruits of that researchthe therapies themselvesto be used.
	Lord Patel and I worked on the amendment that has since been tabled by the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), but my amendment No. 32 is better than that, which is why I have re-submitted itthe two amendments do the same thing. I do not intend to divide the Committee, but whatever the Minister says in reply, will she meet me, scientists and stem-cell research funders, who are concerned, along with her officials to explain precisely whyI fear that she will not have time todaymy amendment is unnecessary?

Evan Harris: The record will show that I said that the Minister is not taking this issue seriously, so she is being unreasonable in suggesting that I have suggested that she is not taking the Bill seriously.
	I have received legal advice that suggests that there is a problem, but the Minister has been unable to address it. The Government gave contradictory opinions in the House of Lords, but she will not even meet people who disagree with her.  [ Interruption. ] I think that she is saying from a sedentary position that she would be happy to meet me.

Evan Harris: Apparently not, which I find amazing. The Minister will find that the issue comes back on Report, when she will be seen to be unreasonable on that issue.
	I have set out why I believe it right to permit saviour siblings and why the drawbacks that have been ascribed to that approach do not apply. For a handful of families, allowing tissue-typing as a form of PGD will give them the opportunity to help one child, while at the same time producing another healthy child who is also wanted.

George Howarth: Anybody listening to the debate on saviour siblings, both in Committee today and in the wider mediaI exempt the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) from this, but there are other speeches still to comemight be forgiven for falling under the misapprehension that the moral argument lies entirely in one direction and that the legislation has been drafted by a latter-day Mary Shelley who wants to allow scientists to create monsters. I am not exaggerating in making that remarkwhen we debated the amendments to clause 4, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) prayed in aid Mary Shelley.
	When one hears comparisons between this Bill and, for example, the Third Reich, it is easy to forget that we are discussing treatments that, if successful, could save lives and prevent needless suffering. We should make decisions based on the best available evidence and put highly charged language to one side. As with most contentious issues, no one side has a monopoly on moral argument, and it is important that we avoid such pretensions and focus on real people's lives and the effects on real people's lives, as supported by evidence.
	I respect the views of those who have reservations about the Bill, but the three main arguments against saviour siblings are flawed. I will discuss those arguments and touch on some of the moral arguments that support our moving in that direction. The first argument that is often put is that saviour siblings would be treated as commodities. In other words, parents who choose to have a further child in the knowledge that that might save the life of its sibling are somehow driven by unacceptable motives. At the heart of that argument lies the alarming notion that the state has the right to question the motives of prospective parents. It does not take a great deal of thought to realise the odd directions in which that could take us. I strongly believe that it is up to parents to decide their own justifications for having children. In practice, to be perfectly honest, it is unclear how it would be possible accurately to judge intentions in every specific case. I do not want too far from the point, Mr. Hood, but it does not take a great deal of imagination to envisage a number of different cases where any of us would disapprove of the circumstances in which a child was conceived. However, would we have the right to condemn their birth? That example has a direct parallel with the argument that I have mentioned.
	The second argument expressed by opponents of saviour siblings suggests that saviour siblings would be the first step on a slippery slope to designer babies. Frankly, that argument could be put only in a completely different context, because the rules in the Bill explicitly prevent such a development. If we went through life rejecting Bills on the basis of what subsequent legislation might propose, we would probably never pass any laws whatever.
	The third argument suggests that saviour siblings may be physically and/or psychologically harmed. It is flawed for several reasons. First, the Bill includes an amendment that limits other tissue, so it does not include whole organs and will have the effect of preventing an embryo from being tested if the intention is to remove an organ from a child. Although it is true that, according to all reports, making a bone marrow donation is not a pleasant experience, there is little, if any, evidence that donors suffer any lasting adverse effects. In fact, the contrary is true: as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon suggested, many people who can offer the gift of life report an overwhelming psychological benefit.
	Arguments against saviour siblings are weak. What are the arguments in favour of them? More importantly, what principles should guide us on the issue?

George Howarth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps I should just take interventions; the more I take, the stronger my argument becomes.
	It is important to remember that, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon pointed out, the only real difference between conventional IVF treatment and the process of creating a saviour sibling is in the reduction of chance at the point when eggs are selected for implantation. In my view, claiming that that is a manipulation of DNA cells or a creation of designer babies is a misrepresentation of the facts. The reality is that it simply enables an informed selection of embryos so that there is a greater likelihood of a healthy baby who also has the potential to save their sibling's life. If, as I do, we accept that the principle of IVF is a good thing and if we have the technology to make this important decision in a more informed way, we should use that technology, as long as all therapeutic alternatives have been exhausted.
	It is a question of using the best available knowledge to maximise the chances of saving lives and reducing suffering. As was noted in the previous debate, there are other sources of therapeutic cellsbone marrow transplants and cord blood from non-related donors provide such possibilities. However, only 20 to 35 per cent. of patients have a matching sibling by chance and the odds of obtaining matching stem cells from an unrelated donor vary according to the ethnic origin of the patient. As matching is significantly improved when the donor and recipient have the same ethnic and racial background, this Bill will have even greater benefits for people from minority ethnic groups struggling to find a suitable donor. Indeed, one of the cases that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon referred to made that point equally well.
	When we think about the principles involved, it is all too easy to forget that we are dealing with uncertainties. The best available scientific evidence can only predict the most likely future therapies. Indeed, the history of medicine shows, repeatedly, that life-transforming treatments in one area often arise from work with a very different original rationale. The obvious example is that of Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillina chance discovery from an already discarded contaminated Petri dish. The drug sildenafil was originally used to treat angina before a notable side effect was deemed to have a significant therapeutic use in its own right. For those in the Committee who are not immediately familiar with this drug, its more popular brand name is Viagra.

David Burrowes: Before moving on to saviour siblings, I would like to deal with the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), including amendments Nos. 24 to 28, which would significantly widen the embryo testing provisions from a situation where there is a risk of a gene chromosome of mitochondrian abnormality to cases where there is a risk from a harmful genotype or any other harmful gene. One has to raise the question of what a harmful gene or chromosome is. How is harmful defined? To whom is it harmfula society that cannot tolerate disease? My concern about the amendments, and the Bill itself, is the value we put on life, and whether we seek to focus on the quality of life and make the judgment that some lives are more valued than others. I am particularly concerned about that lack of definition in the amendments.

Evan Harris: I would like to draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to proposed new paragraph 1ZA(2) in schedule 2(2), which states that not only does there have to be an abnormality or a harmful combination of genes, but also
	a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop a serious physical or mental disability, a serious illness or any other serious medical condition.
	Whatever that threshold isthe hon. Gentleman may think that it should be life-threatening, if anythingthose conditions still have to be satisfied. There is no way in which one could widen the number of people to whom the provisions apply. It is just the way in which we define what it is that creates the risk that is at stake in the amendments.

David Burrowes: I am grateful for that intervention because it is the issue of definition that concerns me. Amendment No. 25 sets out an extension to harmful genotypes. I have looked up the meaning of genotype, and it includes a range of definitions of the genetic make-up of an individual. Genotype can also be defined as the physical or psychological genetic potential of a person when bornfor example, someone born with a genetic predisposition with depression. However, whether that person develops depression depends on their upbringing and environment. I looked further at the definition of genotype, and it is defined as one's genetic potential when born, physically and psychologically. Someone may be born with the physical genotype to play football for his or her country. One would have to judge whether it would be a harmful genotype that led someone to play football for England, Scotland or Wales. One certainly would not want to include a definition of genotype in relation to this area of the law.
	I wish to press amendment No. 4 to a Division because it raises important issues of principle that I do not believe are met by safeguards, which we shall debate later. The safeguards are helpful to the debate, and they have been discussed in detail in the other place. Nevertheless, it is important for this House to decide for the first time on the principle of saviour siblings. Indeed, that is one of the reasons we are discussing the matter in a Committee of the whole House. It is an important issue of principle.
	I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), for whom I have great respect. It is certainly important that we do not simply consider the matter in some vacuum of principle away from the application of the real issues of anguish that have been mentionedthe cases we have heard that, for the avoidance of repetition, I will not go over in detail. The whole House shares considerable concern for those parents caring for a seriously ill child, and understands their desperate search for a cure. After they have been through all avenues to seek a matchfrom bone marrow or any available cord bloodand are told of an opportunity to create a sibling to provide a match, one can understand why they would want to consider that option. It is important that we take account of those concerns and recognise that they are rare concerns. I heard clearly the Government's response on Second Reading that the measure is one of last resort, but it is important that the House deals carefully with the ethical principles involved.

David Burrowes: It is important for Parliament to have legislation that deals with the citizens of this country and to ensure that it is based on sound ethical principles. We need to do that and be vigorous, rather than simply devolving and delegating matters to a regulatory authority. Indeed, good practice might suggest that we devolve the matter to a court. I want to go through those issues and the safeguards in detail shortly.
	First of all, however, it is important to consider the issue of principle. The important principle that we need to vote on today is whether it is legitimate and right deliberately to create a baby who has the same tissue type as a sick sibling with the intention of harvesting the cord blood, bone marrow or other tissue. Do we wish to do that, having taken into account of the concerns of parents who are desperate for a match for an existing child? We need to ensure that we take account of those concerns. We have a duty as a caring society to offer all the services we can through modern medicine, and to ensure that there is a cure available, or an alleviation of those parents' concerns. I want to deal with those matters, too.
	It is important that we do not make decisions in a moral vacuumI do not believe that any hon. Member wants to do that. While taking account of parents' concerns, we must keep hold of the important principle that a child should not be deliberately used or created for the benefit of another, no matter how pressing the need.

David Burrowes: My reaction to that moral imperative, which has existed for several years, is to challenge the Government about the extent to which they are properly focused on and investing in umbilical cord blood to ensure that the necessary resources are available. We can then join Peter Braude of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who chaired the committee on cord blood. When asked about saviour siblings, he said that the need for donor siblings would be temporary and that, in future, he hoped that stem cell supply, especially the use of cord blood from national cord blood banking, would virtually remove the need for donor siblings.

Brian Iddon: The regulator has so far allowed such treatment for only aplastic anaemia, Diamond-Blackfan anaemia and beta thalassaemia. The regulator decides which conditions can be treated by the saviour sibling technology, which in turn determines which tissues can be taken. Would the hon. Gentleman agree with that?

David Burrowes: That raises the question of whether we should extend the use of saviour siblings not only to life-threatening conditions, but the wider threshold of serious illnesses. In time, their use may be extended to illnesses beyond those that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That is why we must consider the safeguards carefully. However, I will deal with the process of regulation shortly.
	Rather than removing the phrase other tissue, the Government wanted to encompass the whole matrix of umbilical cord blood, in respect of research suggesting that cells of the umbilical cord, rather than the cord blood, may offer potential for treatment. That is the Government's primary focus when using the phrase other tissue. However, one cannot be wholly satisfied with that response. In the debate in the other place, in response to Lord Alton of Liverpool, who was particularly concerned about the possibility of other tissue being extended to other regenerative tissue, such as part of a liver or a lung lobe, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon said:
	With regard to parts of an organ, the Bill has been drafted in this way to allow the use of cells of the umbilical cord or, for example, if it were possible in the future to treat conditions with cells cultured from a small biopsy from the liver or any other organ.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 21 January 2008; Vol. 698, c. 23.]
	Reference was made in the debate in the other place to muscle as regenerative tissue and to ensuring that the Bill was inclusive enough to allow for biopsies from muscle for future treatments.
	The Government's position on defining other tissue, as well as including umbilical cord blood and bone marrow, is inclusive. It seeks to deal not only with the current circumstances, but future treatments that may follow. That raises profound questions. Those questions have been raised in correspondence between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Darzi, in a letter dated 25 January, which not only questions the Government's position on other tissue in detail, but questions why, if the Government are focusing primarily on umbilical cords as the donation source, they are not minded to omit the word blood from between umbilical cord and stem cells, so that the Bill would read umbilical cord stem cells. Would that not be sufficient to capture stem cells from both the cord and cord blood? If not, would adding and cord to the existing wording, so that it read umbilical cord and cord blood stem cells, be sufficient?
	I invite the Minister to respond to that. However, if she feels that that approach would not wholly incorporate both the cord matrix cells and a small biopsy of regenerative tissue, why are the Government not explicit in the definition of other tissue? The concern remains that other tissue as currently defined still raises the spectre of part organs being available for donation, whether regenerative or not. I say, not, because then we come to the regulatory role of the Human Tissue Authority after the child is born and the possibility that the courts could be involved too, in decisions relating to transplants of whole or part organs from children.
	That spectre is raised because, as I intimated in my point of order, it is currently not within the remit of the Bill to deal with those details as they affect the Human Tissue Authority and its regulation. We are only one side of the coin, but the House does not have the opportunity to put into primary legislation its concerns about how far a saviour sibling could go in terms of donation. We all need to be aware that once the embryo is tissue typed, it has implanted an immune matched sibling for life and is known to have organs compatible with the older sibling, whether the initial reason related to tissue typing or not. That raises the danger that a saviour sibling could become a lifelong donor.

David Burrowes: My response to that is similar to my response to the hon. Gentleman's previous intervention: those cases are entirely different. We are dealing with a sibling who has been created specifically because of their tissue match and genetic footprint to find a cure for their sibling. The case of another sibling would be wholly different.
	I should like to move to the Human Tissue Act test and consider the best interests of the child in relation to donation. The best interests test includes not only medical considerations, but a person's social, psychological and emotional best interests. That is why the psychological impact is relevant. Those interests would have to be examined if there were an application for donation. That could leave a child in a vulnerable situation and under unique internal and family pressures, having been created specifically to be a donor for the elder sibling. They could be put in a situation in which their older sibling might die if they do not provide the required organ. Those are considerations that could well arise in a chain of events, and it is therefore important that we do not simply rely on the safeguards in the Bill or even those suggested in amendments.
	We must consider carefully, rely upon and uphold the important principle that we should not deliberately create a child for the benefit of another. The way in which to respond to this issue is not simply through prohibition but by promoting an area of resourceumbilical cord blood stem cell research. What is happening is a crying shame; there is a moral imperative on the Government to have more than four hospitals collecting cord blood. It imperative that we do not lag at 13th in a league table of 17 countries for our collection of cord blood units per inhabitant. We are way behind other countries. It is imperative that we inform parents of the value of cord blood and of the opportunities to collect it, and that we encourage collection so that we have that ready resource that can provide the match and cure for parents who desperately want a cure for their children. On those points of principle, I invite hon. Members to support my amendment. We should not countenance a break in the principle, effectively, that a means justifies the end.

Patrick Hall: Does not bone marrow biopsy already take place? The point has been made that that is not with the informed consent of the child, but it could not be because a child is not of legal majority. None the less, such procedures already take place to try to help a sibling, so what is the difference in principle? If a child were created partly for that purposeit would also be because they were wantedthat bone marrow could not be removed for at least a year after they were born, so what is the difference from existing procedure?

Mark Simmonds: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), who made a thoughtful and thought-provoking speech, as did the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), whose logical and engaging speech carefully deconstructed the arguments that have been put forward against saviour siblings. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) made a very principled speech, and he was right to highlight the fact that we must not consider this important issue in an ethical vacuum. I have enormous respect for him, and he was right to highlight the concerns that exist about the HFEA. He was also right to emphasise the importance of cord blood. I do not agree with his amendments, however, which would effectively prohibit saviour siblings. As a father of three young children, who are thankfully very healthysometimes too healthyI have great sympathy with those who are not fortunate enough to have such healthy children. I therefore understand why such people would do anything that they can within the structure of the law to enable their sick child to survive.
	I want to speak specifically to the amendments to clause 11 and schedule 2. I also want to make some generic comments about this part of the Bill, because I understand that there are certain matters that we will not be allowed to discuss in the Public Bill Committee, and we might not have time to discuss them on Report, which will last for only one day.
	The Bill is absolutely right to outlaw sex selection for non-medical reasons. However, pre-implantation genetic diagnosisPGDwill be permitted if there is a significant risk of a child developing
	a gender-related serious physical or mental disability, a gender-related serious illness, or any other gender-related serious medical condition.
	I want to return to the use of the word serious in a moment.
	I support this general proposal, which will allow families who know that they are at risk of passing on a serious genetic condition to their offspring to test the embryos and to implant only an embryo that is free of the disease. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) pointed out that it was not compulsory for parents with genetic illnesses to use PGD. It is not discriminatory, but it is right that it may not be used to select any positive characteristics.
	The Bill also permits the selection of embryos to provide compatible
	cord blood stem cells, bone marrow or other tissue
	to a sibling with a serious medical condition. One of the amendments tabled in my name refers to other tissue. I will expand on that a little later. Cells are normally taken from the umbilical cord of the saviour sibling or, if that is not successful, from their bone marrow.
	Of course this is controversial, but the creation of saviour siblings is currently occurring. It is very rare; I understand that, to date, the HFEA has licensed tissue-typing for only six families. This is available only when all the other options are exhausted, and when there is no match on the bone marrow register, the NHS cord blood bank or other blood banks or within the family. We all hope that the number of cord blood banks in this country will be increased, and that the amount of cord blood that is thrown away will be significantly reduced. However, any decision to use that tissue must be a matter for the Human Tissue Authority to determine, rather than the HFEA.
	As we have heard in the debate, there are serious concerns about the use of saviour siblings, and the HFEA and the HTA must consider closely each application to ensure that it is justified and necessary, and that there is absolutely no alternative. We have also heard discussions about the worth of the saviour child. I do not agree that the provisions would undermine that child's worth, particularly if the child were born into a loving, caring family, as it inevitably would be. In fact, the opposite impact would be achieved if a child knew that it had saved one of its siblings.
	The amendments tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) include amendment No. 15. Its effect would be to tighten the circumstances in which embryo testing can be carried out, so that it could take place only when an illness was life-threatening or severely impaired a person's quality of life. These provisions would replace the word serious that is in the Bill at the moment. Amendments Nos. 17 and 16 would do similar things in different parts of the schedule.

Mark Simmonds: That is where we disagree. I think that my amendments are better because they are, in my view, tighter. I accept that there has to be some flexibilitythere was a debate in the other place about this issuein that we cannot have a list of specific diseases or illnesses that will be treated. I understand the decision taken not to accept that: it would be very difficult to agree the list in the first place; and as new techniques came along, the list might have to be amended, which would be complex.
	Let me move on to deal with amendment No. 18, which relates to the types of tissue used to create saviour siblings. As I have said before, whole organs are prohibited, but I am still concerned about allowing the removal of parts of organs that might not grow backhence the issue of regeneration. As the hon. Member for South Derbyshire said, the issue of consent is also relevant. Indeed, consent is rightly viewed as the cornerstone of this legislation. Given that the child cannot possibly give consent, it would be interesting to know whether the consent of the parents overrides any particular ownership of tissue that the child may have. Adults can, of course, consent to kidney donation, but children and certainly saviour siblings cannot.
	Let me deal finally with licences for therapy in amendment No. 14. It is similar to amendments Nos. 31 and 32, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon. The general thrust of the Bill must be that it should last as long as the 1990 Act. It is a testament to the robustness of debate over that Act that it has lasted for so long. I am sure that the Minister and all other Members of the House who are interested in these issues do not want to have to return regularly to this legislative structure, although I fear that this is one of those areas that may need looking at as technologies and sciences develop.
	Clearly, people believe that scientists may still be a long way off developing cures, but the motivation behind all that research is finding therapies and, ultimately, cures. I understand that no provisions in the 1990 Act provide for treating conditions other than those related to reproduction. The HFEA licenses for treatment, non-medical fertility services, storage and research, includingcorrectlyclinical trials. The amendment would enable the HFEA to license the creation and use of embryos for therapy. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister clarified whether my comments are correct.
	I understand that if a cell line that could cure an illness was deregulated under current regulations, researchers would have to go back to square one and create another cell line to comply with EU regulations. Clearly, that may well delay the application of the cures and treatments.

Mark Simmonds: I do not think that that is right, because we would get into the difficult issue, which was raised earlier, of what would happen if a saviour sibling did not provide a satisfactory conclusion to the illness or the problem. Ultimately, the parents have to make the decision, along with the licensing from the HFEA within the legislative structure that we are discussing, but consent has to be the cornerstonewhere possibleof the legislation. Of course, if there are to be exceptions, all sorts of other issues will be created, which we shall explore in the Public Bill Committee. We will discuss such things as mitochondria and the potential solutions for those with mitochondrial inherited diseases.
	Parliament needs to consider the issue now and not allow it to be slipped through by the HFEA as technology runs ahead of legislation. Indeed, one reason why there has been anxiety and angst is that the HFEA has moved forward as technology has run ahead of the legislation. The Minister will gather from the exchanges and my responses that there is clearly confusion about that issue. Clarity would be helpful.
	In response to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, the Minister mentioned that she has received legal advice that there is no necessity to put a licence for therapies into the Bill. While I can quite understand why she does not want another meeting, it would be helpful if she perhaps placed in the Library for those who are participating in the Committee the detailed legal advice that she referred to, which, as I understand it, states that there is no problem in the HFEA licensing stem-cell therapies.

Dawn Primarolo: I entirely disagree with that proposition. Regardless of whether the principle of saviour siblings is accepted in the House, there is no suggestion whatever that they would be designer children.
	Arguments for banning tissue-typing on grounds of psychological harm to the children who are born are difficult to justify, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) said in his eloquent speech. In practice, so few families have used the technologies that any children born are so young that it is not possible to draw reliable conclusions about the impact of being a saviour sibling. I absolutely acknowledge that fact, and Members must have that clearly in their minds.

Dawn Primarolo: As many points have been raised, I would like to make a little progress before taking an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.
	The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) would ban tissue-typing completely. That would be a backward step, and it would prevent people from accessing treatment to which they currently have access. In practice, tissue-typing is only very occasionally carried out. As has been said, the HFEA has licensed tissue-typing only in a handful of cases, and always for life-threatening conditions. It considers applications for the process on a case-by-case basis, and we would expect it to continue to proceed on that basis. Where it has agreed to proceedfor rare blood disorderstissue-typing already takes place, but that is not specifically set out in the 1990 Act, and this Bill rectifies that. Tissue-typing is a treatment of last resort, and while I acknowledge the concerns of many Members, in my opinion and that of the Government there is not sufficient justification to remove the last-chance treatment option for the sick children who would be affected by such a ban.

Dawn Primarolo: I touched on that point. I absolutely acknowledge that in these extremely difficult cases very hard choices have to be made by loving, caring parents about their families, but those same choices are made by parents who already have younger or older children and who, for example, give their consent now for a bone marrow transplant where an existing child might save another child in the family. So these hard choices sometimes have to be made whether or not such a child has been created through the process under discussion. The hon. Gentleman is right that there are difficult issues that need to be considered, but they are not unique to the provisions in this Bill.

Dawn Primarolo: May I just finish the point before giving way?
	I know that I would want to move heaven and earth if my child were involved. Under this clause and schedule, we are asking the House to agree to leaving it to the parents who are in this dreadful situation to make an application for the special treatment that is providedtesting within saviour siblingsand to leaving it to the HFEA to consider that on a case-by-case basis in order to come to a decision about such families. I say frankly and in all sincerity that unless we are to deny those parents ever having the opportunity to access the testing, that is the best that we can currently do in the House with the constraints as they are.

Geoffrey Cox: Is not the difference between the normal situationone calls it normal because we are dealing inherently with the abnormal in these circumstanceswhere a parent is faced with the choice of whether to give approval for an invasive procedure on an existing child whose tissue matches that of another, and a situation where a child has been deliberately conceived and bred for the purpose, that faced with the latter situation a parent would be under enormous pressure and would not, in law, be regarded necessarily as an independent and impartial person capable of taking a decision on consent in the best interests of that child? So, we have a problem of consent. Is not the difference that in one case the child is bred for the purpose whereas in the other it is not and the parent is simply weighing impartially between the two children the interests of each?

Dawn Primarolo: My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. What is at issue is whether hon. Members agree in principle with saviour siblings, as my right hon. Friend pointed out in his speech. It would help the debate enormously if Members concentrated on what is actually in the Bill and what it would and would not permit, as my right hon. Friend did, rather than on their fears or their hopes in an attempt to undermine the principle.
	The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate persisted in suggesting that the Bill did not explicitly rule out the donation of organs. He did try to correct himself, but he continued to make that assertion, when it is not the case. The Bill sets out that the siblings must be suffering from a serious medical condition that could be treated by umbilical cord blood stem cells, bone marrow or other tissue, except whole organs, resulting from the child

Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman has intervened a lot and he has also spoken. If I could make some progress in answering the points that he has already made, I would be happy to give way later. He owes the Committee an explanation of whether his motivation is just that he is completely against this Bill and its provisions. That would be a legitimate position, but it would be helpful if he could make that clear.
	Amendment No. 18 would limit to regenerative tissue the cases in which embryo testing can be used where the intention is to use tissue other than bone marrow or cord blood. It is our view that that might prevent the use of some potentially desirable types of tissue in the future, such as cells of the umbilical cord itself.
	Amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17 address the issue of whether a disease is life-threatening. Embryo testing allows families with inherited genetic conditions to avoid passing on the particular condition that affects them. The HFEA has licensed more than 80 conditions for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, including Huntington's disease, muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis. Three of the purposes for which an embryo can be tested relate specifically to medical conditions, and the Bill specifies that embryo testing for those three purposes can be done only when the condition is serious.
	I accept the points made in the debate that that Bill does not contain a definition of serious. The HFEA will have to determine how that term should be used in practice when considering the appropriateness of embryo testing for any particular condition. We expect its ethics committee, using its full experience as an authority, to make appropriate interpretations.
	Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 would change the test required to license a condition for some of the embryo-testing purposes from serious to life-threatening or
	severely impairs...quality of life.
	The effect will be to tighten the criteria for which some types of embryo testing can be carried out. As I have said, embryo testing is not a trivial process. It involves invasive stages of IVF including the drug regime and egg collection, plus an additional stage of testing, which will ultimately reduce the numbers that are suitable to be placed in the woman. People would not and do not undertake the process lightly or for trivial conditions.
	How much effect the amendments would have on practice would depend on how the criteria are applied. The HFEA would still need to consider what makes a condition life-threatening: whether such a condition is one that shortens the life of the affected person by a number of years, or one that causes death in childhood. How much of an impairment must the condition be to the person's quality of life? Those are difficult decisions. The use of the word serious in the Bill is to determine for which conditions embryo testing is appropriate. It gives a strong steer about what kinds of conditions can be tested, while allowing scope for the HFEA to apply definitions using its licensing experience.
	Amendments Nos. 24 to 30, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), relate to the use of the word abnormality in embryo-testing provisions. He seeks both an alternative description and an extension of the provisions. Under the amendments, the embryo-testing provisions would be extended to allow the testing of combinations of genes, as well as genes that are not necessarily harmful on their own but could be in combination with another factor. That would involve testing for genes that in the majority of the population are normal variants and would not necessarily cause a medical condition.
	The amendments go further than the provisions in the Bill, and the Government have concerns that as currently drafted the effect might not be as intended. The Bill reflects current HFEA policy, and we are not aware of anyone having used the technology for the wider uses envisaged by the amendments to date. For some people, that type of testing would be considered a step too far. However, we recognise the desire for future-proofing of the legislation. Accordingly, we have allowed for that via a secondary power enabling the provisions relating to embryo testing to be amended in the future. Such regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure. The amendments are not appropriate as they would allow testing for conditions that to date the HFEA has not licensed. If necessary in future, the legislation could be amended using the regulation-making power.
	Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 seek to remove the regulation-making power so that the provisions in the Bill when enacted could not be updated if necessarya point to which Members keep referring. To ensure that the desirable purposes of testing can be permitted, and the undesirable ones prohibited, the regulation-making power is appropriate. The amendments would not allow the legislation to keep pace with science and would limit the longevity of the new Act.
	Let me deal with amendments Nos. 14, 31 and 32, on licences for therapy. Under the 1990 Act, the HFEA is given the power to issue licences in respect of four types of activities: treatment, non-medical fertility services, storage and research. The Bill does not change that. The amendments tabled by the hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) and for Oxford, West and Abingdon would add the further specific category of the licensing of the creation and use of embryos for therapythat is, the creation of embryos to generate embryonic stem cells for use in the treatment of disease that is not infertility related.
	The Government have always supported the use of embryonic stem cells in the development of treatments for serious diseases and medical conditions. Following discussion in the House of Lords, we gave the need to license non-reproductive therapies serious consideration. The Government are of the view that the licensing framework that would be in place following the introduction of the Bill would allow for the derivation of embryonic stem cells if it took place as part of a research project. In the vast majority of cases, it is highly likely that clinical research would be involved. The Bill would then allow the development of those cells into a therapeutic product without the need for further amendment.
	Any embryonic stem-cell line that is intended for therapeutic use will need to undergo considerable safety assessment and then a substantial research phase involving pre-clinical and clinical studies. Each and every cell produced with the intention of treating disease would be different, and therefore each and every cell line produced would require the same clinical research, including pre-clinical and clinical studies. It is therefore unlikely that stem cells will be taken directly from an embryo and inserted into the patient.
	Even with the most advanced and effective protocols for stem cells and for the differentiation of those stem cells into the tissue required, the pre-clinical and clinical testing of those cells will invariably be required before wider use can be sanctioned. As we have explained in detail and in a letter circulated to the House of Lords, it is therefore difficult to envisage a situation, despite the propositions that we have heard, where stem cells will be used for patients without some element of research involving pre-clinical and clinical studies. That would be the appropriate time at which to consider what further regulatory framework we need.
	Some hon. Members are concerned that if embryonic stem cells are derived under a research licence they cannot be used in treatment, because that goes beyond research. Let me address those concerns. Regulatory oversight by the HFEA finishes once a stem cell line is derived. That means that once embryonic stem-cell lines have been developed, the HFEA regulatory framework under which the embryo was produced is not relevant to any further use of that cell line, whether for further research or for treatment.
	The Medical Research Council has recently made available 3 million in order to allow the consideration of 25 embryonic stem-cell lines for therapeutic application, which is to be awarded to research projects in that area. That reflects recognition of the potential for the creation of embryonic stem cells for use in therapy. The House should consider what it does next when that potential is closer to realisation.
	I hope that my comments have been helpful and have shown why the Government's view is that the clause and schedule, as drafted, should remain unamended.

Dominic Grieve: I have to say that I disagree with my hon. Friend. It is a selection of a design for a purpose. Moreover, I do not know whether he was present at the time, but the Minister made it quite clear that we are using the expression, saviour sibling, because the design intention is to help the sibling. Indeed, that is the purpose of the Bill. The aim is not to remove the possibility of a child having genetic problems of their own, but specifically to help another child. I am trying to confine myself to the narrow issue, rather than stray on to the wider ethical question, but I find the proposition very dubious indeed.
	The House has taken it upon itself to try to regulate these challenging ethical fieldsthrough, I suppose, the mechanism of the HFEA; it is the arbiter. I find that impossible to justify, even if I try to approach it in the manner in which it has been presented by the Minister. For that reason, I shall certainly support the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes). I do not see the need for the process, to approach the issue from the narrow angle of the Minister, and I see many downsides to it. We are embarking on a new field of ethical activitythe creation of human beings specifically for the genetic benefit of others. I suggest to the House that it should try to think through logically the consequences of what it is doing before we embark on that course.

Tom Levitt: I rise as a biologist, a rationalist and a supporter of the Bill. I am not attracted by any of the amendments that have been discussed tonight. However, I do not want to engage in intellectual argument or discuss high-falutin' matters of philosophywe heard enough of that in the previous contribution.
	I want to tell the Committee a story about one of my constituents. David is three years old and suffers from fanconi anaemia. There is no medical treatment or cure for that condition. He needs a bone marrow transplant before the age of 10 to avoid a slow and lingering death within the following 20 years, when he will die from bone marrow failure or from leukaemia. There is no existing tissue match for David. All 12 million people worldwide who are members of bone marrow databases have been checked, but a match has not been found. If David were to have a bone marrow transplant from a mismatched donor, there would be a 30 per cent. chance that he would survive in the short term. At that point, he would spend six months of his life in hospital, and he would have a life expectancy of perhaps another 15 years. He would not reach adulthood, if he were to have a mismatched donor.
	The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) should note that the same point applies to cord blood banks. In an e-mail, David's father told me that
	A cord blood bank is potentially positive for any child having to undergo a bone marrow transplant but the specific nature of the disorder of Fanconi Anaemia, the commonest inherited bone marrow failure condition, is that a related sibling match will always have significantly less mortality and morbidity than an unrelated donor match irrespective
	of whether it comes
	from an unrelated adult donor or unrelated cord blood.

Evan Harris: This excellent debate has gone far and wide, well beyond the issue of saviour siblings. In fact, I am surprised that the debate has ended somewhat earlier than planned. Nevertheless, I should like to offer the following comments to the Minister and the Committee about my amendments.
	Amendments Nos. 24 to 30 question whether abnormality is the right term to use for the genetic characteristic to be tested in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. I accept that, as the Minister said, my amendments go further than the provisions of the Bill. But I am concerned that the Bill may not go far enough to capture all the conditions that are not single-gene mutations, and therefore abnormalities, that one might legitimately want to test for with the same threshold of seriousness. The Minister says that we would need to provide examples in order to persuade her that the existing wording was not sufficient, and that is the challenge. If, for example, one could identify two normal variantscausing a life-threatening diseasethat could not be called abnormalities, perhaps the Government would look at the matter again. I shall ask the clinical advisers whom I have been hearing fromincluding Professor Martin Bobrow, who chaired the Academy of Medical Sciences working group into another aspect of the Billwhether they can provide some specific examples.
	The second area is that of licences for therapy, which is dealt with by amendment No. 30 and associated amendments. I listened carefully to the Minister, who made it clear that the Bill allows embryos to be created and used for research, which in itself should be sufficient to cover any therapeutic use. She gave a second reason, which I accept, that the therapeutic use of cells will be covered by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the Human Tissue Authority and not the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
	Moreover, any embryos from which stem cells are derived will inevitably have research associated with them, and therefore could be covered by a research licence. But I question whether that is the case in every situation. Briefly, I want to mention four scenarios and see whether the Minister recognises that there might be a problem.
	There might be an organisation that is a specialist in the derivation of embryonic stem-cell lines in other jurisdictions, which applies to the HFEA for a licence to use embryos to create stem-cell lines that it intends to pass on to another organisation to use for research or therapy. How would such an applicant be able to specify what research was done if it is not doing the research? The current Bill requires the people producing the embryos to be the people associated with the research licences, which may stifle innovation, investment and the production of stem cells.
	Secondly, cell-based therapy might be so well established in the future that only quality assurance need be carried out, without a research protocol, prior to therapy. In such a scenario, the embryo would be created and then used for therapy without a research step. The same distinction between quality assurance and audit on the one hand, and research on the other, is already made in the Human Tissue Act 2004 for the use of tissue. The Minister's argument depends on there being no possible therapeutic use that did not require a form of clinical or pre-clinical research on those cells, and I am not convinced that that is certain.
	The assumption that the therapeutic use of ES cells will always follow formal research during the lifetime of the legislation is dangerous because if phase 1 and phase 2 trials are successful, there will be clinical pressure to use ES cells as experimental treatment, albeit licensed by the MHRA, outside of the phase 3 research protocol. Alternatively, phase 3 trials might be successful, and it would be questionable whether one could identify a proper research application, beyond quality assurance, within the subsequent use of the newly derived ES cell lines created under research licence. The Minister may say that that is dealt with, and if she agrees to put a summary of the legal advice in the Library, I shall look at it.
	Finally, if therapeutic cloning works, it might be possible to provide autologous stem cell therapy for a patient using their own somatic cells. That would be experimental therapy, not research, if it were used, and such a situation might apply in the lifetime of the Bill. I am concerned that the Government are not adequately future-proofing the Bill by accepting the relevant amendment, and we shall have to examine that question in the weeks to come. It is not my intention, however, to press it to a Division now.
	I turn to amendment No. 15, in the name of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), which I did not address in my earlier comments. It proposes to change the definition of serious disease to a disease that causes a serious impairment of quality of life. He defended that on the basis that his definition was tighter and less open to interpretation. I questioned that in interventions. To be fair, he kindly accepted that he was not sure that it was tighter.

Evan Harris: I question whether the definition is tighter, but I do not believe that it should be because the decision should be left to doctors and patients, under the regulator's guidance. It is difficult for us decide at the outset that something is not serious when the regulator, the doctor and the patient might consider it serious. When pre-natal diagnosis is done through amniocentesis, with an indication for termination of pregnancy, not at an embryonic but a foetal stage, weeks into the pregnancy, there are no criteria for seriousness. It is illogical to have a high threshold for embryonic steps to avoid illness when amniocentesis and pre-natal diagnosis in an established pregnancy require no such threshold. Doctors have written to me saying that they do not understand that distinction: why one can terminate a pregnancy without a seriousness thresholdthe doctors and patients decidewhen we set such a threshold for embryo testing, before a pregnancy is established.
	Let me consider the important speech of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) about the extent to which it is appropriate to conduct invasive procedures on a child to derive tissue for transplant to a sibling. I am a member of the BMA Medical Ethics Committee. The BMA wrote that it is not worried about that ethical problem because there is already provision for taking the child's best interests into account. In the case of disagreement by doctors and parents or between parents, a court must be involved. Paragraph 44 of the Human Tissue Authority code of practice states clearly, if briefly:
	Courts have identified certain important decisions which require court approval where one person with parental responsibility consents against the wishes of another. If there is any dispute between persons with parental responsibility or any doubt as to the child's best interest, the matter should be referred to court for approval.
	Invasive procedure could be sanctioned only when there is no doubt that it is in the child's best interests. Of course, that is relevant to every sibling, not only the small minority of saviour siblings, who may be a match for an affected child. It is wrong to suggest, in the few cases that the Bill covers, that there is a problem with common law, medical ethics and the guidance to doctors about the best interests of a child for invasive procedures if we do not extend those provisions to the many more children in that position. The Bill strikes the right balance on saviour siblings and I urge hon. Members to bear that in mind.
	I respect the commitment of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) and the way in which he presented amendment No. 4, on which I am sure the Committee will divide. However, it is clear from advisers on cord blood banking that, however much one expands cord banks, it will not remove the need in a minority of cases for saviour siblings. I hope that he accepts that I can find no medical opinion, including from those who run the banks, to support the view that expansion would do away with the need for legislation on saviour siblings in a minority of cases.
	I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	 Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	Schedule 2
	Activities that may be licensed under the 1990 Act
	 Amendment proposed: No. 15, in schedule 2, page 55, leave out lines 24 to 28 and insert
	'(i) a gender-related physical or mental disability which is life-threatening or severely impairs their quality of life,
	(ii) a gender-related serious illness which is life-threatening or severely impairs their quality of life, or
	(iii) any other gender-related serious medical condition which is life-threatening or severely impairs their quality of life [Mark Simmonds.]

Schedule 2
	  
	Activities that may be licensed under the 1990 Act

Amendment proposed: No. 4, in page 55, leave out lines 30 to 37. [Mr. Burrowes.]
	 Question put, That the amendment be made:
	 The Committee divided: Ayes 163, Noes 342.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Amendment proposed: No. 18, in page 55, line 35, after 'other', insert 'regenerative'. [Mr. Simmonds.]
	 The House divided: Ayes 200, Noes 293.

John Hemming: This petition is an interesting one, because the main driving force behind it was a great grandfather, Mr. Phil Thompson, who was bewildered as to why his great grandchildren were taken out of the family. After some difficult effort, we found out the low level of threshold that was required, and hence we have the following petition:
	The Petition of the O'Gorman Family,
	Declares that a case in the Family Court has highlighted an injustice in the current system. The three children of Philip O'Gorman have been put up for adoption because it is alleged one of them missed some days in school, some medical appointments were missed, they were seen to be dirty and unkempt and that they would not cooperate with social services. The family contest the allegations, and believe that neither of these allegations is sufficient to warrant children being forcibly adopted into another family. The petitioners further believe that these actions were driven by a desire to increase the numbers of children adopted rather than to protect the children concerned. The petitioners believe that the response of the authorities was totally disproportionate in this case.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to legislate to prevent courts from accepting these arguments as sufficient cause to forcibly remove children from their birth families and ensure that parents are facilitated to contest the allegations made by the authorities
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000196]

Tony Baldry: I have given the Minister prior notice of exactly what I intend to say to enable him better to respond directly to the points that I shall raise.
	I need to put my concerns about the future of GP dispensing into the context of two broader points. The first is that my constituents are becoming increasingly angry and frustrated about what they see as a persistent attack by this Government on local services. Locally, we have seen post office closures and we have been spared the closure of our local, consultant-led maternity unit and 24/7 children's wards at the Horton hospital thanks only to the intervention of the independent reconfiguration panel. Not surprisingly, my constituents are constantly asking what next public or community service will be taken away from them.
	One of my constituents wrote to ask me to oppose the pharmacy White Paper, asking
	why is this Government so determined to destroy all quality of life for rural inhabitants? This village has lost its Post Office, and consequently its shop, is shortly to lose our next nearest Post Office, now our dispensary service is under threat. What will they destroy next?
	Secondly, this debate has to be seen in the context of the Government's professed commitment to give NHS patients greater choice. After all, the Government have spent considerable amounts of money on ensuring that GPs have choose and book systems, the better to allow patients choice as to where they are treated. Indeed, last week, the Prime Minister in his statement on the draft legislative programme said:
	It is right to make it
	the NHS
	more accountable to local people, giving patients real power and control over the service they receive.[ Official Report, 14 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 1387.]
	If the Government genuinely want to give patients real power and control over services they receive, the least the Government could do is to allow people the freedom to decide where they would like their prescriptions dispensed.
	At the moment, there are some 5,872 dispensing doctors in the UK in 1,365 practices. Overall, they look after more than 8 million patients, of whom 3.5 million are dispensing patients. For reasons that I shall explain, these GPs mainly have rural practices. They provide the enormous benefit that patients can visit their GP and, at one and the same place, have their drugs both prescribed and dispensed. That service is being threatened by the Government.

Ivan Lewis: I will not.
	That is the nature of the health service that we seek to create. The idea that the Government have an agenda to impose polyclinics on a one-size-fits-all basis in every community in every part of the country is utter nonsense. That is disingenuous, because it is not the Government's position.
	On behalf of his constituents, the hon. Member for Banbury has raised a number of valid and legitimate points, which I shall deal with. On Bloxham, the current regulations covering NHS pharmaceutical services have been in place since April 2005. They replaced previous systems, which existed in one form or another since 1948indeed, I understand that the regulations on rural areas can be traced back to 1936. The latest regulations implement a series of measures that were agreed between pharmacy and medical representative bodies back in 2001. It is important for the House to bear in mind that the regulations that gave rise to the local PCT's decision about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned are based on that accord between representatives of doctors and pharmacists.
	It is a long-standing general precept, which all Governments have endorsed since the NHS came into being, that doctors prescribe medicines and pharmacists dispense them. In that way, patients receive the benefits of both professions' expert advice, intervention and care. I have used the term general precept very carefully. We all agree that both medical and pharmaceutical services have developed significantly since 1948. Our White Paper set out ways in which pharmaceutical services should and will grow in the future.
	It is also possible that a community pharmacy is simply not a viable proposition in every part of the country, especially in rural areas. Patients need to receive their NHS-prescribed medicines promptly and efficiently, which is where dispensing doctors can play a vital role by allowing patients to collect their medicines from a surgery's dispensary without undertaking a lengthy journey to the nearest pharmacy. In the vast majority of cases, if the patient wishes to receive the services of a dispensing doctor, they need to live in a designated controlled localitythe hon. Gentleman has raised that point. The local PCT determines whether a particular area is rural or not. When it does so, it invites views from interested parties locally. Whatever the PCT decides, the decision can be appealed to an independent body, the NHS Litigation Authority, which is genuinely independent. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the question is whether Bloxham is rural in character. An appeal against the PCT decision has been lodged with the NHS Litigation Authority, and every opportunity will be given for people, including the hon. Gentleman, to make appropriate representations.
	The hon. Gentleman has referred to the OFT. He has accused the Government of ignoring the OFT's recommendations on community pharmacy services, which we did not do. We responded in July 2003 and did not accept the case for full deregulation. We decided to move cautiously in the recommended direction, and we announced a balanced package of reforms to the regulatory system. We introduced those reforms in 2005 and reviewed their operation in 2006. Overall, we have found that they opened up the market as intended without destabilising it, but the impact was genuinely uneven. The tendency for pharmacies that are open for at least 100 hours a week to cluster near each other in some places is considered in the White Paper, which is why we have introduced proposals for further reform and why we did not fully deregulate as the OFT wanted.
	On the reference by the OFT's chief executive to GP-led health centres, I cannot say what was intended by the reply that the hon. Gentleman received, and I am sure that the chief executive's office will be pleased to help him further. GP-led health centres are designed to extend choice and offer convenient services. Indeed, 250 million of additional funding is available, and I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will bid for some of those additional resources on behalf of his constituents.
	The White Paper was not, as the hon. Gentleman has claimed, published during the recess; it was published while Parliament was sitting. It has received broad support from all those involvedthe NHS, health professionals and business. The hon. Gentleman has referred to chemists' shops, and I hope that the community pharmacy profession as a whole is not offended by the implication that its members are simply retailers. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman implied no such disparagement; pharmacists are, of course, highly trained and skilled professionals. However, not once has the hon. Gentleman mentioned his local pharmacist or referred to the comprehensive programme that we have set out to develop community pharmaceutical services.
	It is absolutely right in a changing world that the Government should be prepared to engage in the reform of the NHS that most appropriately meets patients' needs. Of course, that has to be done in partnership with the local population, which will be given every opportunity to comment.
	 The motion having been made after Ten o'clock , and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker  adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	 Adjourned at Eleven o'clock.